Blog 3: Westminster Abbey

Something that I found particularly interesting was the history the Westminster Abbey had when it came to Mary I and Elizabeth I. The entire conflict was religious; with Mary being a strong Catholic who wanted England to go back to Catholicism after her father Henry VIII changed it to Protestant so that he could have a divorce. Mary was his first child from his first marriage. Desperately wanting a boy because he felt that only a boy could become King after him, he went to the Catholic Church’s Pope looking to divorce Catherine of Aragon. Not wanting to upset other country’s monarchs, he said no. So Henry VIII proceeded to change everything around himself by going Protestant and making England do the same.

Once can see why Mary would dislike the Protestant religion at this point. First she was Catholic to begin with and then second, her father changed over just to divorce her mother. Henry failed to get what he wanted from his next marriage (which produced Elizabeth) and eventually he divorced and re-married enough to get his sickly son, Edward VI who was nine when he became King. Dying about six years later, Mary was put on the throne in 1553. During her reign, she turned England back to Catholicism. One thing she did was make sure that Westminster Abbey was Catholic during her rule. Those who were Protestants at the time who refused to go to worship at the Catholic Churches were murdered terribly. This is why she was eventually known as Bloody Mary who, even till today, people in Britain thing she was a crazy, psychopath.

Eventually, Elizabeth took the throne when Mary died in 1558. She was buried in, according to the Westminster Abbey site, in the north aisle of Henry VII's Lady Chapel. When Elizabeth took the throne, she switched things back to what they were before, but despite this big conflict (during which Elizabeth was locked up by her sister to keep her out of the way, I suppose) James I decided to bury Elizabeth on top of her sister in the Abbey. There is only a marker for Elizabeth, the site mentions, while Mary is only mentioned on an inscription. As it is not in English, it is translated to mean “Partners both in throne and grave, here rest we two sisters, Elizabeth and Mary, in the hope of the Resurrection". Hopefully Mary did not turn over in her grave when this was decided, because that may have been a bit uncomfortable for Elizabeth. But I find it very interesting and kind of cool that graves of people in the Abbey can have super history behind them.