Mary's name has come down to us associated with an epithet expressive
of the utmost abhorrence (S342); but she deserves pity rather than
detestation. Froude justly says, "If any person may be excused for
hating the Reformation, it was Mary."
Separated from her mother, the unfortunate Catharine of Aragon, when
she was only sixteen, Mary was ill-treated by Henry's new Queen, Anne
Boleyn, and hated by her father. Thus the springtime of her youth was
blighted.
Her marriage brought her no happiness; sickly, ill-favored, childless,
unloved, the poor woman spent herself for naught. Her first great
mistake was that she resolutely turned her face toward the past; her
second, that she loved Philip II of Spain (S369) with all her heart,
soul, and strength; and so, out of devotion to a bigot, did a bigot's
work, and earned that execration which never fails to be a bigots
reward. But the Queen's cruelty was the cruelty of sincerity, and
never, like her father's hangings, beheadings, and burnings (S358),
the result of tyranny, indifference, or caprice. A little book of
prayers which she left, soiled by constant use and stained with many
tears, tells the story of her broken and disappointed life.