Mary I - The First Queen Regnant of UK

1. Mary I of England

   Queen of England
2. Mary I was Queen of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death. Her executions of Protestants caused her opponents to give her the sobriquet "Bloody Mary". 
3. Born: February 18, 1516, Greenwich, United Kingdom
4. Died: November 17, 1558, St James's Palace, London, United Kingdom
5. Spouse: Philip II of Spain (m. 1554–1558)
6. Buried: December 14, 1558, Westminster Abbey, London, United Kingdom
7. Siblings: Elizabeth I of England, Edward VI of England, Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Richmond and Somerset
8. Parents: Henry VIII of England, Catherine of Aragon

    

    

   Mary I was the first Queen Regnant (that is, a queen reigning in her own right rather than a queen through marriage to a king). Courageous and stubborn, her character was moulded by her early years.
   
   An Act of Parliament in 1533 had declared her illegitimate and removed her from the succession to the throne (she was reinstated in 1544, but her half-brother Edward removed her from the succession once more shortly before his death), whilst she was pressurised to give up the Mass and acknowledge the English Protestant Church.
   Mary restored papal supremacy in England, abandoned the title of Supreme Head of the Church, reintroduced Roman Catholic bishops and began the slow reintroduction of monastic orders.
   
   Mary also revived the old heresy laws to secure the religious conversion of the country; heresy was regarded as a religious and civil offence amounting to treason (to believe in a different religion from the Sovereign was an act of defiance and disloyalty).