The Passionate Tudor: A Novel of Queen Mary I

Alison Weir

May 2024 · Sold by Ballantine Books

About this ebook

The New York Times bestselling author of the Six Tudor Queens series explores the dramatic and poignant life of King Henry VIII’s daughter—infamously known as Bloody Mary—who ruled England for five violent years.

Born from young King Henry’s first marriage, his elder daughter, Princess Mary, is raised to be queen once it becomes clear that her mother, Katherine of Aragon, will bear no more children. However, Henry’s passion for Anne Boleyn has a devastating influence on the young princess’s future when, determined to sire a male heir, he marries Anne, has his marriage to Katherine declared unlawful, brands Mary illegitimate, and banishes them both from the royal court. But when Anne too fails to produce a son, she is beheaded and Mary is allowed to return to court as the default heir. At age twenty, she waits in vain for her own marriage and children, but who will marry her, bastard that she is?

Yet Mary eventually triumphs and becomes queen, after first deposing a seventeen-year-old usurper, Lady Jane Grey, and ordering her beheading. Any hopes that Mary, as the first female queen regent of England, will show religious toleration are dashed when she embarks on a ruthless campaign to force Catholicism on the English by burning hundreds of Protestants at the stake. But while her brutality will forever earn her the name Bloody Mary, at heart she is an insecure and vulnerable woman, her character forged by the unhappiness of her early years.

In Alison Weir’s masterful novel, the drama of Mary I’s life and five-year reign—from her abusive childhood, marriage, and mysterious pregnancies to the cruelty that marks her legacy—comes to vivid life.

Ratings and reviews

This book traces the life of English Queen Mary I from happy childhood as the mostly adored child of her parents until her death at the age of 42. It's full of parental (Henry VIII) betrayal, mean stepmother (Anne Boleyn), disappointing husband (Phillip II of Spain), and a host of political rivalries. Though generally a fan of author-historian Alison Weir, I found this one too long and too weighed down with unnecessary detail.

This novel does a good job of humanizing Mary I. It’s impossible not to feel sympathy for her precarious position, from the fall of her mother until the death of Edward VI. As queen, she remains a tragic figure—but her certainty that she’s performing the will of God blinds her to the claims of political expediency and human compassion. Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

Good

About the author

Alison Weir is the New York Times bestselling author of The King’s Pleasure, The Last White Rose, and the novels in the Six Tudor Queens series: Katharine Parr, The Sixth Wife; Katheryn Howard, The Scandalous Queen; Anna of Kleve, The Princess in the Portrait; Jane Seymour, The Haunted Queen; Anne Boleyn, A King’’s Obsession; and Katherine of Aragon, The True Queen. She has also written numerous earlier novels and historical biographies, including her ongoing series, England’s Medieval Queens.