Bloody Mary vs. The Virgin Queen
Not Just the Tudors
History Hit
4.8 • 3K Ratings
🗓️ 16 August 2021
⏱️ 44 minutes
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Summary
Queen Mary I has had a bad press over the centuries, her five-years on the throne overshadowed by her half-sister Elizabeth's 45-year reign. While Elizabeth I is often hailed as "Gloriana" - and one of the greatest ever Britons - "Bloody Mary" more often finds her way onto charts of the most evil women in history. Both childless, Mary is reviled as "barren" while Elizabeth is lauded as the "Virgin Queen".
In this edition of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb talks to Professor Anna Whitelock who puts the case for a more balanced assessment of Mary I as a Queen who pioneered what female rule could look like.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The reputation of Mary I of England, the country's first crowned Queen Regant, has been |
| 0:16.8 | overshadowed throughout history by that of her half-sister, Elizabeth I. In fact Mary |
| 0:23.6 | has been worse than overshadowed by comparison to the glittering accolades attached to Elizabeth |
| 0:29.6 | Virgin Queen, Gloriana, one of England's greatest ever monarchs. Mary has been seen as bigoted, |
| 0:37.2 | stupid, bloodthirsty, doudy, unnatural and barren in every sense of the word. |
| 0:47.7 | Today to discuss these two sister queens and to attempt to reach some fresh conclusions, |
| 0:53.8 | I'm delighted to be joined by Professor Anna Whitelock, historian, author and broadcaster. |
| 0:59.8 | She holds a chair in the history of monarchy at City University. Her books include Mary Tudor, |
| 1:07.0 | England's first queen and Elizabeth Bedfellows, an intimate history of the Queen's court. |
| 1:13.3 | Who better to ask about these two Tudor monarchs? |
| 1:23.9 | Anna, it is a real pleasure to chat with you today. We've had kind of parallel careers, haven't we? |
| 1:29.2 | Yeah. Both been interested in monarchy, both been interested in the Tudors and just approach |
| 1:33.9 | things slightly differently but always alongside each other. Absolutely, both have blonde curly hair, |
| 1:38.6 | which occasionally I'm mistaken for you, which I take is incredibly flattering. And vice versa. |
| 1:42.7 | But yeah, you're right, we've slightly been in tandem in different ways, which is always really |
| 1:46.9 | interesting. I think I came across you first of all when you were working as a curator at Hampton |
| 1:53.0 | Court and doing part of their reinterpretation of Henry VIII's apartment. So that was really |
| 1:57.6 | interesting in the big Henry VIII conference that was there for 500 years. And so you've been |
| 2:04.1 | on my radar for a long time. I don't think we've ever actually had a proper chewed aback and forth |
| 2:08.2 | conversation, so it's great to have the opportunity. This is long overdue. So we thought that we would |
| 2:15.0 | compare Mary the first versus Elizabeth the first. So I suppose we ought to first will ask whether |
| 2:21.2 | this is at all fair to compare Mary five years' reign with Elizabeth for 45 years. Are we setting |
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