Welcome to On the Tudor Trail Gretchen! Could you tell us about yourself and your background?
Thank you. I live in Northern California, with my husband and three children. I’ve lived in California most of my life, but I’ve also lived in New York, England, and Turkey. I have a BA in English and a MA in Education, and I’ve taught high school and college English. My writing has been published in several anthologies and magazines, including Adventure Cyclist and Highlights for Children. I co-wrote the screenplay, Alma, a short film that has screened at film festivals throughout the United States. Mary Tudor “Bloody Mary” is my first book.
Mary Tudor: Bloody Mary by Gretchen Maurer
Your book Mary Tudor: “Bloody Mary” is part of a series of non-fiction books (The Thinking Girl’s Treasury of Dastardly Dames) aimed at girls between the ages of 9-13. Could you tell us a little about your book and the series?
Goosebottom Books’ second series, The Thinking Girl’s Treasury of Dastardly Dames, explores the lives of some of the most fascinating women in history, each of whom got labeled with a terrible nickname. (The first series is The Thinking Girl’s Treasury of Real Princesses.) The six titles in the series include Cleopatra “Serpent of the Nile”; Agrippina “Atrocious and Ferocious”; Mary Tudor “Bloody Mary”; Catherine de’ Medici “The Black Queen”; Marie Antoinette “Madame Deficit”; and Cixi “The Dragon Empress.”
In my book, Mary Tudor “Bloody Mary,” I tell the story of Mary’s life, from birth to death. I ground the narrative in a social/historical context, so kids can get a sense of why Mary made the choices she did. I tried to present a balanced portrait of Mary, one that I hope leads young people to decide for themselves whether or not she deserved her bloody nickname. The book is packed with rich and varied illustrations, as well as fascinating facts in sidebars, like, “What she wore,” “What she ate,” and “What was all the fuss about?”
Were you interested in history as a young girl?
Yes, but mostly local (Native American and natural) history. When I was about ten, I took a basket weaving class from a celebrated Native American Pomo basket weaver, Elsie Allen, whose first language was Pomo. I remember appreciating that I was learning an old, old art form, one that had been passed down to Elsie from her mother and grandmother.
I also appreciated that I lived so close to several coastal redwood forests, where trees range from 600 to 2,000 years old. We don’t have beautiful, ancient buildings in California, but we do have beautiful, ancient trees!
It wasn’t until my early teens, after I visited Europe and took in-depth history courses in school, that I became more interested in European and world history.
Could you share with us a little about the process you undertook when researching your book?
I read a lot of biographies of Mary and others in the Tudor family (some of the books were written by authors you’ve interviewed for this website, like David Loades, Anna Whitelock, Linda Porter, and Alison Weir), and Eamon Duffy’s The Fires of Faith. I also read books about the Reformation and Tudor fashion and lifestyle, articles about Mary in History, History Today, and Church History, and I scoured the web. I analyzed and organized my pages and pages of notes, then began writing.
What is one thing that you learnt about Mary Tudor that really surprised you?
That Mary had not one but two phantom pregnancies, and that with the first, her belly grew large, she was sure she felt the baby move (after an emotional reunion with Cardinal Pole), and at one point, Londoners actually believed she’d given birth to a boy. They celebrated by ringing church bells, feasting, and lighting bonfires.
Do you believe Mary Tudor deserves the nickname “Bloody Mary”?
I think Mary’s nickname obscures her full story. No one can ignore the brutal fact that she ordered the execution of over several hundred people, but her actions were rooted in deeply-felt beliefs shared by many people of the time. Mary was not purely evil; many people considered her brave, truthful, and compassionate, and she did a lot of good for her country. Her father, sister, and grandparents executed hundreds of people as well, but they fared much better in the nickname department.
Are there any other Tudor personalities that fascinate you?
Catherine of Aragon. She was a strong, good-willed woman, and she was so unjustly treated by her husband, King Henry VIII. I’d want to offer her my support and ask her about her childhood. What was it like growing up in Spain with parents like King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella? What do you miss most about Spain, and like most about England?
Have you visited places connected to the Tudors? If so, do you have a favourite Tudor location?
I traveled with my family throughout England when I was thirteen, and I lived in London for a semester in college. I remember being particularly awed by Westminster Abbey. All those royal coronations and burials …
If you could travel back in time and witness only one event during Mary’s lifetime, what event would you choose?
I’d love to be near Framlingham Castle the afternoon Mary inspected the estimated 30,000 men who assembled there to defend her right to claim the crown. I’d like to hear what she said to them and see the expression on her face as they cheered her on. What a day it must have been for her.
Thank you Gretchen!
Thank you, Natalie. I really appreciate it.
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