British Monarchs Who Ended Badly, Part 6: Edward VI, Bloody Mary, and the Virgin Queen

As we learned in Part 5, Henry VIII broke with the Church of Rome and disposed of his first two wives (divorced, beheaded) in his quest to father a male heir to the English throne. His third wife, Jane Seymour, delivered the goods, and promptly died, leaving a vacancy for wife number four. 

The "goods" was the future Edward VI, who became king in 1547, on Henry's death. He did not prove to be the strong monarch Henry had hoped for. He was only nine years old, and sickly. This left him under the influence of the powerful men around him. 

[Image: Edward VI, aged 13]

They favored moving the new Church of England in a more Protestant direction and penalising Catholics. Under their influence, Edward became a little bigot. His brief reign was marked by riot, rebellion, and war with Scotland. 

Edward VI died at age 15, probably of tuberculosis. According to Henry's will, his eldest daughter Mary was next in line. Unlike Edward, Mary was raised a devout Catholic. 

The Protestant nobles who had dominated the country under Edward knew that Mary would remove them, or worse. They ignored Henry VIII's final will and proclaimed Lady Jane Grey as Queen. She was a teenager they believed they could manipulate. [Image: Lady Jane Grey, Streatham Portrait]

Lady Jane was descended from Henry VII, and thus of royal lineage, but many influential people believed Mary was the rightful heir. Within little over a week, Lady Jane's support evaporated, and Mary's forces prevailed. 

Lady Jane was never crowned, so one can debate whether she was ever monarch. But neither was Edward V, who is counted as a king. A tough call. It was a tough end for Jane as well. The "Nine Days Queen" was beheaded at the Tower of London, along with her husband and father-in-law.

Mary Tudor has gone down in history as "Bloody Mary." That's awful, but how many monarchs have a popular cocktail named after them? Even "Ivan the Terrible" has only got a vodka. 

[Image: Mary I]

Mary earned her nasty epithet because of her violent campaign to restore Catholicism in England. During her brief reign (1553-1558) her government executed hundreds of Protestants, mostly by burning at the stake. [Image: Protestants being burned at Smithfield Market in London, from an 18th century edition of Foxe's Book of Martyrs]

The persecutions did not achieve their result, perhaps because Mary died too soon. Their main result was to make her and her Church infamous in England for centuries. 

Something else hurt her popularity. She married a foreign monarch, the most powerful in Europe at the time, Philip II of Spain. We all know the English love to hate foreigners. He came to England, married Mary, gamely tried to impregnate her, and left for home soon after. I think he knew the game was up. He later sent the Spanish Armada in revenge.

Mary believed she had gotten pregnant. It turned out to be a false pregnancy. She died in 1558 with her two great tasks unfinished. Catholicism was not firmly restored, and there was no Catholic heir. 

With Mary gone, one child of Henry VIII remained: Elizabeth, daughter of Anne Boleyn. Elizabeth I lasted 45 years and brought some needed stability. [Image: Elizabeth I, the Armada Portrait]

The "Virgin Queen" was the last of her line. Whether she really died a virgin or not, the fact that Elizabeth never married meant the end of the Tudor dynasty. 

Her options for marriage were certainly unappealing: an English nobleman or a foreign prince, most likely a Catholic. Neither was likely to be a popular choice, and any man she chose, she knew, would try to rule her and the country. 

Elizabeth was an effective monarch for her time but it wasn't an especially pleasant time. Many historians have proclaimed the "Elizabethan Age" as a Golden Age for England. That may have been true for some people, but it was a tough world for most of them. Savage laws against beggars and vagrants were the main means of dealing with the rising numbers of poor.  

England famously defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588. It was a critical victory, but the Spanish plan had serious flaws from the start. It is hard to see how it could have succeeded. 

Under Elizabeth, England became safe for Protestantism of a sort. Her religious settlement, her Church of England, compromised between Catholic and Protestant doctrine. But crucially, it remained independent of Rome with the monarch as its titular head. 

Radical Protestants disliked the Elizabeth's Anglican Church as too "Romish" and pushed to "purify" it. Devout Catholics tried to destroy it. Yet enough people supported it to ensure its survival to this day. 

Elizabeth is usually compared favorably to her sister Mary and portrayed as more tolerant and moderate. Up to a point, the distinction is valid, but only up to a point. Elizabeth did not send hundreds to the stake, but she did have many a Catholic priest hanged.

Historians have praised Elizabeth for creating a church that sought compromise between Catholic and Protestant doctrines and her distaste for religious persecution. "I would not make windows into men's souls," she is alleged to have said when becoming Queen. 

By this, she meant that as long as people conformed to her version of the church outwardly, she did not care what they thought. The truth is, she had to care. Thought, when sincere, can lead to action. 

Violence and rebellion connected to religious causes was never far below the surface in Elizabethan England. The pope declared Elizabeth a heretic who could be deposed or killed and Catholic plots against her were common. 

One of those famously involved was her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots. In 1567, Protestant nobles deposed Catholic Mary from the Scottish throne. She fled to England and put herself under Elizabeth's protection. [Image: Mary, Queen of Scots]

Mary was the granddaughter of a sister of Henry VIII. As such, she was Elizabeth's closest heir. She became a focus of Catholic plots to replace Elizabeth with her after the pope declared Elizabeth a heretic. 

Elizabeth kept Mary in comfortable captivity for 19 years before bowing to the demands of her male advisors and ordering her cousin's execution. (Contrary to certain "historical" films, the pair never met face to face). 

Catholic priests in England, especially Jesuits, sometimes met a similar fate. They were declared agents of foreign powers aiming at Elizabeth's assassination, and therefore guilty of treason. Catholics in Ireland also suffered for their faith and opposition to English rule. The subjugation of the Emerald Isle was completed toward the end of her reign. 

Elizabeth died soon after, in 1603. She never publicly named her successor. Her chief minister, Robert Cecil, arranged the business. The son of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, James VI of Scotland, became King James I of England, Wales, and Ireland, the first monarch to rule all of the British Isles. 

England was wealthier and more populous than Scotland and the weather was a little better. James viewed England as the Land of Milk and Honey. He and his dynasty, the Stuart monarchs, would discover another reality.

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Carew Manor, where Tudors came to play.

How would you like to go to school in a mansion where Tudor Kings and Queens once stayed? In the grounds of Beddington Park in Surrey sits a large red brick building of considerable interest. Today it houses Carew Academy, but for centuries it was the seat of the aristocratic Carew family. 

Visitors to the manor included Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Elizabeth I, and James I. They came to hunt, fish, meet lovers, and discuss politics.

The rise of the Carews of Beddington dates from the late 14th century, when Nicholas Carew arrived in the area. He was a descendant of the Carews of Carew Castle in Pembrokeshire. He married the daughter of the manor's owners and the estate passed into his family. Nicholas rose to the high post of Keeper of the Privy Seal. 

Sir Richard Carew, who owned the house from 1492 to 1520, either created or greatly enlarged the park now known as Beddington Park. In St. Mary's Church, next door to the manor, the Carew family chapel contains the impressive tomb and effigy of Sir Richard.

  

Richard's son, Sir Nicholas Carew was a favorite of Henry VIII and a member of his Privy Chamber. Henry hunted and courted Anne Boleyn at Carew Manor, while still married to Katherine of Aragon. After Henry had Anne executed for alleged adultery in 1536, he courted Jane Seymour at the manor. (Image: Sir Nicholas Carew, by Hans Holbein the Younger)

Unfortunately for Sir Nicholas, Henry had him executed as well, for alleged treason. He was beheaded on Tower Hill in March 1539. One popular explanation is that Carew beat the king at bowls. The real reason has to do more with politics. Carew had alienated the king by championing Princess Mary, daughter of Henry and Katherine of Aragon. 

Carew had also fallen afoul of Thomas Cromwell, the king's chief minister. With those two against you, your days were numbered. Anyway, Henry never let friendship get in the way of a good beheading. Cromwell himself soon fell to the axe.

The king confiscated Carew's estates, and the manor fell into other hands for a time. It was recovered by his son, Sir Francis Carew (1530?-1611) in 1554, during the reign of Mary Tudor (Bloody Mary). 

Mary's successors, Elizabeth I and James I, visited Carew Manor during Francis' time, Elizabeth at least fourteen times. It is likely that royal visitors hunted deer in the large manor park, now Beddington Park and beyond to Mitcham.

An oft-told story relates that Francis delighted Elizabeth by presenting her with cherries out of season. Cherries were a symbol of virginity, the perfect gift for the Virgin Queen. Elizabeth's long-time favorite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester also visited in the 1580s, and enjoyed fishing for trout in the nearby River Wandle. (Image: Robert Dudley)

Despite entertaining royals, Francis avoided involvement in politics, perhaps because of his father's fate. He served in one parliament, but never held any government position or received any favors from the monarchs, a fact he was apparently quite proud of. His stance may have hurt the family's revenues, however.

Francis substantially rebuilt the house. He created a renowned garden and added what is believed to be England's first orangery. He never married. After his death, the manor passed to his nephew Nicholas Throckmorton, on condition he change his name to Carew. 

The Carews fell on hard times during the following decades. They backed the losing Royalist side in the Civil War  of the 1640s and mismanaged their wealth. 

The house became rundown, and another Nicholas Carew undertook major rebuilding in the early 18th century, adding to the family debt. Soon after the work was completed, a fire destroyed the interior of one of the wings. Debts piled up, exacerbated by reckless gambling. In 1859 the house was sold.

After undergoing major alterations, Carew Manor reopened in 1866 as the Royal Female Orphanage. That era ended in 1939, and as mentioned above, it is now a school, Carew Academy. Little of the original structure remains, but the 15th century great hall with its arch-braced hammer beam roof survives and is Grade 1 listed.

The hall is occasionally open to visitors.

Cutting up at London's Smithfield Market

Smithfield, the site of London’s ancient meat market, lies just north of the old city walls. It was an open air market for centuries. The image above shows the old open air market just before it closed down to make way for the massive Victorian structure that occupies the site today. That building, part of which is pictured below, opened in the 1860s. Smithfield is the largest meat market in the UK and one of the largest in Europe.

For centuries, cattle, sheep, poultry, swine, and horses have been brought from all across Britain to feed and transport London. The name of a nearby street, Cowcross, proclaims the final path that many a beast took to its place of execution. (Image: Cowcross)

After slaughter, their carcasses were tossed into the nearby Fleet River, or Fleet Ditch as it became known, as the river congealed into a gooey, foul-smelling mass of animal remains and human wastes, an open sewer of ill fame.

The River Fleet was covered over in the 18th and 19th centuries and now runs below ground under Farringdon Rd. and Farringdon St., exiting into the Thames at Blackfiars Bridge.

Smithfield was not only a place for animal slaughter. People were chopped up and otherwise disposed of there as well.  The most famous, thanks to Mel Gibson, was William Wallace, AKA “Braveheart” who was hung, drawn, and quartered at Smithfield for having had the balls to defend his country from the rapacious Edward I. In one of its many errors, the film shows Edward dying at the same as Wallace was being executed. In fact, Edward died two years later. (Below: Memorial to Wallace across from Smithfield, on the outer wall of St, Bartholomew's [Bart's] Hospital) 

In the 1550's, “Bloody Mary” Tudor had several hundred Protestants burned here for their refusal to abandon their "heresy."

In 1381, the leader of the Peasants’ Revolt, Wat Tyler, was treacherously killed here by the mayor of London while parleying over the peasant’s demands. The peasants were aroused by a new tax, a poll (head) tax, to pay for an imperialistic war against France, the so-called Hundred Years War. Although Tyler was killed and the revolt subsided, the government abolished the tax. 

Six hundred years later, Margaret Thatcher, defied history and tried to introduce a poll tax in the UK. As in 1381, the people revolted again, a revolt that helped lead to her ultimate downfall.

This Church is a Film Star: London's St. Bartholomew's

The Church of St Bartholomew the Great in the City of London is probably familiar to you.  Even if you have never been there in person, you almost surely have seen it on the big or little screen. It has been used in many popular films and TV shows, including Four Weddings and a Funeral, Shakespeare in Love, Amazing Grace, The Other Boleyn Girl, Richard II, and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. 

The church's stardom helps explain why it was the first parish church in England to charge tourists an entrance fee.  For a parish church it is quite large, which may explain its attraction to film-makers. Being in the heart of London doesn't hurt either.

The church, which stands just to the south of the famous meat market of Smithfield, dates from 1123, when a man of some wealth named Rahere, founded the Priory of St. Bartholomew, with an attached hospital. Rahere had recovered miraculously from a fever while on a pilgrimage to Rome, and in a dream the saint instructed him to set up a monastic foundation, or so said Rahere. 

The hospital, the oldest in London, is next door inside a high wall. The wall contains a memorial to William Wallace, Braveheart, who was executed for treason nearby, one of many people who met that fate here, including the heretics/martyrs burned under Bloody Mary. 

A statue of Henry VIII, father of Bloody Mary and Elizabeth I, stands over the entrance gate to the hospital, legs splayed, looking very kingly indeed. The statue was his reward for dissolving the monastic foundations and giving the hospital to the City. 

Since Henry’s time the hospital has been a secular establishment, known affectionately as “Bart’s.”  Another interesting and just as old church sits inside the hospital walls known as St. Bartholomew the Less. The “Less” is not a put-down, but was coined to distinguish it from its larger namesake nearby. Both are part of the same parish of the Church of England today.

How convenient. In one little place, you might be cured of illness (not likely), executed (more likely), and given the necessary rites to speed your way to heaven (unlikely).

Just to the south of Bart's Hospital lies the former site of London’s notorious Newgate Prison, now replaced by the Central Criminal Court. But that is another story.