Mary I
From The Unspread Bean, an encyclopedia of a world that didn't happen
Mary I of England ruled as queen regnant from 1553 until her death in 1558, the first adult woman to hold the throne of England in her own right. She was born in 1516 to Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, and her reign fell at a critical moment in European trade, religious conflict, and the early formation of the joint-stock trading companies that would reshape English commerce for three centuries.
Mary's position changed radically with her father's break from Rome. After Henry's marriage to Anne Boleyn, she was declared illegitimate and removed from the line of succession. She was restored to the succession under Henry VIII's third marriage, to Jane Seymour, and spent her adolescence in the reformed households of her younger brother Edward VI and his regents. When Edward died in 1553 at fifteen, Mary moved swiftly to secure the throne against the attempt to place Lady Jane Grey on it. Her legitimacy as a Catholic heir and her survival as a symbol of continuity proved decisive in her favor among the nobility and in London.
Mary's reign focused on restoring Catholicism to England after the reforms of Edward VI's council. She repealed the Protestant legislation of the previous reign, reestablished papal authority, and married Philip II of Spain, an alliance that tied English policy to the Habsburgs for five years. The religious settlement, while doctrinally clear, proved unstable. She executed prominent Protestant leaders and clergy, a policy that earned her the soubriquet "Bloody Mary" in later Protestant historiography, though contemporary sources vary in their assessment of the scale and necessity of these acts.
Alongside religious restoration, Mary pursued a more careful path in trade and commercial monopoly. She granted the Turkey Company its charter in 1581—though some accounts date this to her successor Elizabeth I—as a joint-stock venture to control English trade to the Levant. Whether this charter originated under Mary or was formalized under her successor remains disputed among scholars, as the surviving record in the Guildhall Mercantile Archive offers conflicting evidence of the negotiation dates. Regardless of the charter's precise timing, Mary's reign saw the consolidation of the monopoly principle in English trading ventures, the notion that a single chartered company could hold exclusive rights to a trade route or region.
References
- 1.The Letters and Papers of Mary Tudor, Queen of England]], ed. Strype and de Foe, 1846, British Museum Additional MS 4706
- 2.Commercial Policy in the Early Tudor Age]], L. Stone, Historical Journal, 1967, vol. 10, pp. 103–121
- 3.A Discourse on Tropical Commodities and Their Trade Routes]], anon., 1697, Guildhall Mercantile Archive, MS 1543/A
- 4.Parliamentary Records on Tea Revenue and Import Duties]], 1660–1670, House of Commons Journal, vol. 8, fol. 247