‘Knot of Love and Concord’: Loyalty in the Life of Mary I

Abstract

This thesis examines loyalty as an emotional practice that shaped Queen Mary I’s queenship. Emotion has always been at the centre of scholarly assessments of Mary, but it has been used predominantly to dismiss her as hysterical and poor in judgement – in other words, a poor politician, monarch and head of state. However, this narrative has been significantly revised in the last two decades and scholarship now considers the challenges Mary overcame to become the first queen regnant of England. Attentiveness to gender has fundamentally changed how we understand Mary’s experience within a patriarchal society unfamiliar with a female monarch. While gender has refined our analysis of Mary, historians are yet to fully explore the implications for her affective experiences and practices. This is at odds with a growing body of literature recognising the emotional practices of early modern royal women as a mechanism of authority in a range of domestic and dynastic settings. This thesis offers a long-overdue analysis of Mary’s relationships throughout her life (1516–1558) using history of emotions methodologies. The examination of loyalty considers familial, political, and religious values during a period in which they overlapped and interacted within dynastic and social networks. It addresses the ways in which loyalty emotions were shaped by gender, kinship and cultural norms. As such, this thesis finds affective discourses allowed Mary to navigate conflict and uncertainty by generating loyal relationships. The reciprocal nature of these relationships provided Mary with a sense of belonging, authority and purpose. It argues that only by considering Mary’s emotional experiences and practices within their historical context can we establish a more nuanced assessment of her as an individual and monarch.