The Marian exiles were English Protestants who fled to continental Europe during the 1553–1558 reign of the Catholic monarchs Queen Mary I and King Philip. They settled chiefly in Protestant countries such as the Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany, and also in France, Italy and Poland.
Catherine Willoughby, Duchess of Suffolk, fleeing Catholic England with her husband Richard Bertie, her daughter Susan and a wet nurse.
Mary I, also known as Mary Tudor, and as "Bloody Mary" by her Protestant opponents, was Queen of England and Ireland from July 1553 and Queen of Spain and the Habsburg dominions as the wife of King Philip II from January 1556 until her death in 1558. She is best known for her vigorous attempt to reverse the English Reformation, which had begun during the reign of her father, King Henry VIII. Her attempt to restore to the Church the property confiscated in the previous two reigns was largely thwarted by Parliament, but during her five-year reign, Mary had over 280 religious dissenters burned at the stake in the Marian persecutions.
Portrait by Antonis Mor, 1554
Catherine of Aragon, 1520, Mary's mother
Mary in 1522, at the time of her engagement to Emperor Charles V. She is aged 6 and wears a rectangular brooch inscribed "The Emperour".
Mary in 1544
