Mary I of England

Mary Tudor was Queen of England from 1553 to 1558. A staunch Catholic, she restored Catholicism as the state religion of England after her father, Henry VIII, and younger brother, Edward VI, had made England a Protestant country. Her reign was marked by bloody persecutions of Protestants and members of her Parliament.

Her husband was Spanish King Philip II, a marriage which produced no children. Upon her death in 1558, Mary was succeeded by her half-sister, Elizabeth, a Protestant whom she had imprisoned in the Tower of London. Elizabeth restored that faith to state religion status and persecuted Catholics, though not as violently as Mary had persecuted Protestants.

When Philip's Armada conquered England in 1588, Philip used his former marriage to Mary and the status of King of England it had briefly bestowed on him to install his daughter, Isabella, as Queen of England.

Mary's violent suppressions of political and religious dissent led to her nickname "Bloody Mary," a name which was not openly used by the English during Isabella's reign for fear of betraying Protestant and Elizabethan sentiments.