Why Was "Bloody Mary" So Called?

Mary Tudor, eldest child of Henry VIII, came to the throne in 1553. The five years of her reign saw the execution of over three hundred people who had adopted the new Protestant faith after her father's reform of the Church. Mary was a devout Catholic, like her mother, Catherine of Aragon. Throughout the turbulent changes that followed her parents' divorce and the transfer of Church powers to the crown, the Princess Mary had hoped one day to be able to restore the Catholic Church to its former supremacy. Once crowned queen, she eagerly did so, believing that burning people to death was less cruel than allowing them to burn in hell for heresy. Her husband, Philip of Spain, urged her to show more mercy, but Mary was convinced she was acting for the best. Unhappy in her marriage, unable to bear a child and increasingly hated by her people (she lived in terror of assassination) Mary died in 1558.