With advances in DNA techniques, the days of an impostor posing as a long-lost relative is all but over. Proving a familial relationship can be solved by a simple blood test.

See Also: Top 10 Influential People Who Never Lived

However, before DNA was heard of it was a much more subjective process, especially if a long period of time has passed. Identification relied on documents, which can be forged, and eye-witnesses who can be mistaken.

Or bribed.

Here are 10 impostors who tried to live a life that wasn’t theirs.

10Jeanne Calment

Jeanne Calment was known as the world’s oldest woman, dying at the ripe old age of 122. However, research by a group of Russian researchers suggests that Calment was, in actual fact, only 99.

According to a mathematician and a gerontologist (gerontology being the study of aging), the real Jeanne Calment died in 1934 at the age of 59. They believed that her daughter, Yvonne, assumed her mother’s identity in order to avoid paying large amounts of inheritance tax.

It is claimed, the mother was buried under the daughter’s name, and her death certificate was issued without confirmation from a doctor or coroner. Yvonne’s husband never remarried, and lived for many years with his ‘mother-in-law’.
Calment certainly looked good for her age, and bore a striking resemblance to her daughter in the few photographs that exist. Calment ordered that her personal papers be destroyed after her death.

The researchers interviewed Jeanne Calment and asked her questions about her childhood. While it is true that she made several errors, it was a long time ago. By the time of Jeanne’s death, in 1997, she was the longest-lived human by a considerable margin, having over 3 years on her closest rival.

Only an exhumation and DNA test can conclusively establish whether Jeanne Calment was really 122 when she died. Either way, mother and daughter are finally laid to rest together, and no one is willing to dig them up.^[1]

9 Roger Tichborne

Roger Tichborne was the eldest son in a wealthy Victorian family who was lost at sea when his ship sank in bad weather in the middle of the Atlantic. His mother refused to believe that he was dead and placed adverts in newspapers all over the world, seeking information.

Ten years passed, then Lady Tichborne received a letter from the long-lost heir in Australia. This man had an Australian accent, rather than the expected French. But, then, he had been away a long time. He was fatter than he had been, but his diet may have suffered without his home-cooked meals. He was also several inches shorter than Tichborne, which would, ordinarily, have been a deal breaker. However, Tichborne had had a particularly distinguishing, but not immediately obvious, characteristic—deformed genitals. An inspection showed that, in this respect at least, the claimant measured up. Lady Tichborne declared to be her son.

In order to reclaim his inheritance, Tichborne needed to prove his identity in court. At the trial, several witnesses claimed that Tichborne was, in fact Arthur Orton from Wapping. The case collapsed after Tichborne was asked about the contents of a sealed envelope that had been left in the care of his estate manager before he went away. Tichborne said it contained provisions in case the ‘high-born lady’ he was sleeping with turned out to be pregnant.

He guessed wrong.

The false Tichborne, who was never conclusively identified as Orton, or anyone else, was convicted on 32 counts of perjury, and sentenced to 14 years hard labor.^[2]

8 Perkin Warbeck

If you are going to impersonate someone, why not think big? This, presumably, must have been Perkin Warbeck’s thinking when he made his claim to be the rightful King of England.

Warbeck bore a passing resemblance to Edward IV, which may, or may not, have been a coincidence, but it lent credibility to Warbeck’s claim to be the Duke of York, one of the ‘Princes in the Tower’, imprisoned by dastardly King Richard II in the Tower, and therefore, the rightful king.

He found supporters for his cause, some of whom may have believed him. Many, however, were desperate for a legitimate reason to overthrow Henry VII who had deposed Richard to set up a new Tudor dynasty. If they could prove Warbeck’s claim before Henry became established as King, they might succeed.

In 1496, James IV of Scotland invaded England with Warbeck by his side, but they were quickly repelled. Warbeck organised several more invasions before being captured in 1497, when he surrendered to the King, and retracted his claim to the throne.

For a while, it seemed that Warbeck was forgiven. He was entertained at Henry’s court and even attended royal banquets, though he was kept under guard. However, when he tried to escape, he was captured and sent, perhaps for the second time, to the Tower of London, before being hanged in 1499.^[3]

7The False Dmitry

Dmitry, the youngest son of Czar Ivan IV, also known as Ivan the Terrible, was supposed to have died in 1591, after cutting his own throat. Some, however, believed that he had been murdered by the usurper Boris Godunov, or that he had escaped.

Three other people came forward claiming to be a Dmitry who had escaped his assassins, but only one of the False Dmitrys, as they became known, went on to become Czar. In 1603, our Dmitry began to amass an army against Boris Godunov. Godunov declared that Dmitry was in fact, Grigory Otrepev, a runaway monk.
Dmitry began his uprising, just as Godunov died. Almost without opposition, Dmitry marched into Moscow as undisputed Czar. He ruled for a year, and was reasonably popular with his subjects.

Dmitry married in 1606, but in the middle of the wedding celebration, a riot broke out, and rebels stormed the Kremlin and killed the Czar.

Many people hoped that Dmitry had, once more, managed to escape his assassins, and a civil war was fought in his name, leading to several more hopefuls, with dreams of the Imperial Crown, to claim to be either the Original Dmitry, back from the dead, or the Back From the Dead Dmitry, back from the dead.

It can never be known for sure whether the body that was dumped in Red Square was really that of the son of Ivan the Terrible, but historians think that it is unlikely.^[4]

6 Paul Tagaris

Paul Palaiologos Tagaris was a Byzantine monk who claimed a royal lineage.

Tagaris got ordained as a priest in the Greek Orthodox church in Jerusalem in order to get away from his wife. He clearly had charisma, and, in respect of his royal heritage, was given a post of authority over bishops in Jerusalem. Whereupon, he sacked the bishops, and sold their sees.

He gave himself the title Patriarch of Jerusalem, and just before he was arrested, he fled to Rome, where he presented his credentials to the Pope, publicly confessed his sins, pledged his allegiance to the Catholic Church, was forgiven, and given the title of Latin Patriarch of Constantinople.

His epiphany seems to have been short lived, since it was not long before the clergy of his new diocese were complaining about the taxes he levied on them. He fled again, this time to Avignon where a rival pope sat, and confessed once more.
It didn’t last.

He returned to Constantinople, made a final dramatic confession, renounced Catholicism, and was again forgiven. It is not recorded whether this new epiphany was genuine, but the odds seem against it.^[5]

5James Reavis

James Reavis was a pragmatist. During the Civil War he enlisted with the Confederates and developed a profitable side-line, selling forged leave passes.

When he was about to get caught, he fled, and joined the Union army.

After the war, he began to fake land titles. He created a number of documents relating to his ‘ancestor’, who, apparently, worked for King of Spain, and had been appointed the Baron of Arizona. Along with the title, of course, the King presented Reavis’ forebear with a large parcel of land to be passed down the generations.

Which was handy.

Whilst waiting for his claim to be assessed, Reavis made a deal with a railroad company for access to the land, netting him a tidy fortune. He also sold quitclaims, selling titles for land he did not own.

When it looked like he may lose his claim, Reaves went to Spain ‘looking for evidence’. Soon after he visited an archive, documents would be discovered by the archivists. Though it was suspected he was planting documents, it could not be proved.

His land claim was eventually dismissed, and he was convicted of forgery, receiving a two-year sentence and a $5,000 fine.

Which seems rather lenient considering how much money he made from his cons.^[6]

4 Natalya Bilikhodze

In 2002, a press conference was called, and statement by video staked Natalya Bilikhodze’s claim to be Anastasia, the youngest child of Czar Nicholas II. Despite almost certainly being assassinated by Bolsheviks, 1918, the rumor has persisted she somehow escaped.

Though there have been many Anastasia claims, Natalya Bilikhodze’s will almost certainly be the last one. Anastasia would then have been 101.

Anastasia had been living in obscurity in Georgia, but a committee had been formed to prepare her ‘homecoming’ to Moscow. Although her exact location was kept secret, the committee’s chairman that they wanted to ‘restore the honorable name of Anastasia’.

Which is admirable, maybe.

They also wanted the billion-dollar Romanov inheritance to be handed over as soon as her identity was confirmed.

Ah.

While it may not come as a surprise that the Grand Duchess of the Romanovs was not, in fact, still alive, what was surprising, was that Natalya Bilikhodze wasn’t either. The video testimony of the ‘heiress’ had been made several years before, and Natalya herself had died 2 years earlier. She was buried without the benefit of a state funeral.

When this was discovered, the committee seemed to dissolve overnight, and the chairman lost interest in restoring Anastasia’s honor.^[7]

3 Martin Guerre

Probably the most famous impostor of all time, Martin Guerre was a peasant in 16th century France who married up. In 1548, he was accused of stealing from his own father, and absconded in the middle of the night.

For 6 years his wife was alone, unable to divorce him and unable to prove that he was dead, which was a difficult position for a woman at that time. So, when Martin suddenly reappeared, she was probably almost as relieved as she was angry.

Though some people doubted New Guerre’s identity, he did look a little like Old Guerre, in height and build, and he certainly seemed to remember them. New Guerre lived happily with his reunited family for 3 years, until he decided to sue his uncle for an inheritance that had passed him over during his absence.

Uncle Guerre was not a believer. When a passing stranger told him that the real Guerre had lost his leg and that New Guerre was a fraud, he investigated further, and discovered that Arnaud du Tilh, from a nearby village, was missing and looked a lot like New Guerre. After much persuasion, he convinced Martin Guerre’s wife to file a suit against him.

At the trial, Guerre’s wife gave evidence against him with reluctance. New Guerre challenged her to declare him a fraud, saying that if she did, he would willingly be executed. She stayed silent. Despite his wife’s refusal to condemn him the trial continued with over 150 witnesses to his identity called. Many affirmed that he was the Real Guerre, including Martin Guerre’s 4 sisters, and many declared him to be Amaud Du Tilh. In the confusion, Guerre was convicted, and sentenced to death.

New Guerre appealed, and his wife and uncle were arrested for perjury, with New Guerre testifying that his wife had been intimidated by his uncle. He was questioned in detail about his past and answered them all.

The judges were about to acquit him, when a man with a wooden leg turned up, claiming to be the Real Martin Guerre. This man, too, was questioned about his past, and his memory was found to be faulty at a number of points. Damningly, however, when New New Martin Guerre was presented to his wife, uncle and sisters, they all agreed instantly that he was the Real Martin Guerre.

Amaud du Tilh was convicted of fraud, and afterwards confessed that he had several times been mistaken for Guerre because of their likeness, and, on finding that there was an inheritance to be claimed, bribed people who had known the family to give him information.

Tilh was hanged in front of Martin Guerre’s house a few days later.^[8]

2 Mary Baynton

If you lived in a remote village in 16th Century England, and a stranger arrived professing herself to be the daughter of the king, you might a little nervous. If that king was Henry VIII, famous for his bad temper and tendency to chop off people’s heads, you might be very nervous.

So, when Princess Mary arrived unexpectedly in a village in Lincolnshire, no one was brave enough to challenge her identity. Princess Mary was, she claimed, the daughter of Henry and Katherine of Aragon, his first wife. She also told of a prophecy made by the Queen of France that Mary “would one day face great hardship”.

She was, she said, trying to make her way to Spain, where she would be safe. The place she had chosen to stay was, perhaps coincidentally, a region known for its sympathies towards Mary Tudor, whose future claim to the throne was being ignored.

She did solicit money for her escape, claiming that the king had abandoned her, but it is believed that the amounts she received were relatively small. It is probably also true that many people would have known that their ‘Princess Mary’ was not Mary Tudor, but they treated her as a kind of mascot for their cause.

Princess Mary was in fact, plain old Mary Baynton. In 1533, she was arrested and recanted her claim to royal status.

She was never heard from again. Unfortunately for Mary Baynton, and indeed for Mary Tudor, the aunt’s prophecy about one day facing great hardship, turned out to be true.^[9]

1 The Countess of Derwentwater

In 1857, a woman with the improbable name of Lady Amelia Matilda Mary Tudor Radcliffe filed a claim to the defunct state of Derwentwater. She was, she claimed, the granddaughter of the 4th Earl of Derwentwater who had died 120 years earlier, supposedly without an heir.

She said the Earl had abandoned his family during the Jacobite rebellion, and had faked his own death. The Countess provided a complete family tree to back her claim. Lady Amelia, as she was known to her friends, brought along documents, portraits, and even family jewels to support her claim to the land, which now belonged to the trustees of a hospital.

Her claim was dismissed.

Undeterred, Lady Amelia went to the press, and impressed many readers with her credibility. Many contributed money to ‘her cause’. In 1868, she broke into the ruined Derwentwater mansion, whilst dressed in royal-ish regalia, including the ‘sabre of her sires’ which was slung around her waist. She hoisted her family flag over the ruined tower and put the family portraits on the wall.

When the hospital evicted her, carrying her bodily from the building in front of the press and public, she set up camp on the road outside, attracting much sympathy for this ‘distressed gentlewoman’. Lady Amelia began to collect rent from ‘her tenants’ and even auctioned off property and livestock owned by the hospital.
The hospital sued, and she was fined £500 and the Countess was forced to sell off her family heirlooms to pay the debt.

Historians are certain that there never was a Countess of Derwentwater, and no one really knows who the impostor really was or where she came from. The heirlooms she sold turned out to be rather clumsy fakes and the family portraits had been painted by the ‘Countess’ herself.^[10]

2020 is finally coming to an end, and thanks to a plethora of horrible events, the conclusion of this year is something to look forward to. Everything from COVID-19 and contested presidential elections to massive wildfires and the breakout of wars across the globe has made 2020 a year most would like to forget.

That said, the year wasn’t a complete and total mess. While COVID dominated the news, good things continued to happen. This list highlights the ten best parts of an otherwise horrible year and are presented in no particular order.

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10 Multiple COVID-19 Vaccines Were Developed

COVID-19 brought the world to a standstill as countries closed businesses and enforced stay-at-home orders. The virus impacted every aspect of the economy. By December, it killed more than 1.5 million of the 67+ million people infected with the virus.

Thanks to the focus of money, time, and attention to the problem, several pharmaceutical companies managed to create a vaccine. While it won’t go into widespread distribution in 2020, it will make its way around the world in 2021.

As of December, two primary vaccines were developed by Phizer/BioNTech and Moderna, though AstraZeneca, Janssen, and Novavax continue their Phase 3 clinical trials. The vaccine developed by Phizer/BioNTech was found to be 90% effective in preventing COVID-19, while Moderna’s vaccine is 94.1% effective.

On December 8th, Margaret Keenan, a 91-year-old British woman, was vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine, making her the first person in the world to receive it following approval. She is only the first of billions of people who will take the injection, but it’s a massive win in the war against the virus.^[1]

9 A Possible Control For Malaria Was Discovered

Malaria is one of the deadliest diseases on the planet, and nearly half the world’s population lives in areas at risk of transmission. In 2016, malaria caused around 216 million clinical episodes, leading to the deaths of 445,000 people.

It’s often the number one killer in the places it runs rampant, and the World Health Organization estimated that 90% of deaths in 2016 resulted from malaria infections in the WHO Africa Region.

Measures to control mosquito populations have run the gamut of scientific advancement. Ongoing efforts to genetically alter mosquitos are underway, and other measures include the use of pesticides and other means to stop the pests from transmitting malaria to humans.

A new discovery in May could finally offer up a means of taking the fight to malaria directly. A team of Kenyan and British scientists discovered Microsporidia MB, a parasitic microbe that blocks mosquitos from carrying malaria.

The discovery of Microsporidia MB may pave the way in controlling the spread of malaria, making it a significant discovery. Research is underway in developing the discovery into a viable means of controlling the spread of the disease.^[2]

8 The #MeToo Movement Scored A Huge Victory

The #MeToo movement began in 2006 on MySpace, but it wasn’t until 2020 that the movement achieved a truly significant victory. That’s when widespread accusations of sexual-abuse that exposed Harvey Weinstein finally came to fruition with a conviction in February. Weinstein’s legal troubles pushed women from all over the entertainment industry to speak out.

Alyssa Milano posted on Twitter, “If all the women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote ‘Me too’ as a status, we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem.” The attention she brought to the situation brought the #MeToo movement to the forefront of sexual assault and sexual harassment in and out of the entertainment industry.

It took a few years, but the #MeToo movement achieved a huge success in 2020 when Weinstein was finally convicted for numerous crimes. On March 11th, Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison, which is something his victims believed would never happen.

Weinstein’s conviction resulted from a charge of rape that occurred in a New York City hotel in 2013 and forcibly performing oral sex on another woman in 2006. While the full range of charges and the massive list of victims didn’t result in additional convictions, his imprisonment achieved a victory over a powerful man whose assaults went unchallenged for decades.^[3]

7 Africa Was Declared Free Of Wild Polio

Most people in the west don’t give polio a second thought, thanks to its eradication in many western nations by 1979. Unfortunately, the virus continued in various parts of the world where vaccination became difficult.

In countries like Nigeria, hundreds of people contracted the virus, with 2006 spiking to 1,100 cases, so worldwide eradication was and is ongoing. While wild polio remains a problem in parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan, it has finally been eradicated in Africa, which is a monumental achievement following decades of work.

The polio vaccine was developed by Dr. Jonas Salk in 1952, and by ’61, the oral polio vaccine came to market. Vaccination efforts were widespread in developed countries, but several less-developed nations in Asia and Africa remained affected by the poliovirus.

Immunization campaigns were launched by the likes of Nelson Mandela, who helped mobilize the “Kick Polio Out of Africa” campaign in 1996. In that year alone, 75,000 children across the continent were paralyzed by the virus, but it’s finally been defeated. 2020 marks the end of the wild poliovirus, which will no longer infect the children of Africa.^[4]

6 Sudan Finally Achieved Peace

The Republic of Sudan has been embroiled in conflict for decades, resulting from linguistic, cultural, and religious differences as well as divisions in political power. The Sudan Civil War erupted in 1983 and wasn’t settled until 2005, but the conflict didn’t truly end.

Sudan was ruled by a dictatorial government led by Omar al-Bashir between 1989 and 2019 when he was ousted via a successful coup d’état.

Throughout al-Bashir’s rule, Sudan was embroiled in human rights abuses and was a sponsor of global terrorism. Sudan’s role in the War in the Darfur region resulted in between 300,000 and 400,000 casualties. The government operated under Sharia law, but that changed, making it possible to achieve peace.

After the ouster of al-Bashir, Sudan formed a new secular government. By August, several major groups signed a preliminary peace deal. Sudan’s People’s Liberation Movement-North came to the table for the first time alongside two factions from the western region of Darfur and one from the south.

The conflicts that were started by Sudan’s former dictator were brought to an end. After decades of fighting, Sudan finally achieved peace. As a new democracy rose in North Africa, peace became the law of the land.^[5]

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5 Multiple Successes In Israeli-Arab Peace

While U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has been relentlessly attacked by the media, it has achieved significant gains in the realm of Middle-East peace. Trump’s administration worked as the intermediary for two significant treaties that normalized relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

The Middle-East conflict has been ongoing for decades, but there hasn’t been a normalization of relations between Israel and a Middle-East nation since Jordan in 1994. Before that, Egypt signed a deal in 1979, but 26 years passed before another country stepped up.

The United Arab Emirates and Israel signed the historic Israel–United Arab Emirates normalization agreement on August 13th, 2020, making it the third Arab nation to formally normalize its relations with Israel. On September 15th, Bahrain did the same, when both countries officially signed their respective agreements brokered by the United States.

Efforts continue to bring more Arab nations to the negotiating table, as most have yet to recognize and normalize relations with Israel. Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia are among the dozens of nations that have yet to negotiate a similar agreement.^[6]

4 The Falkland Islands Were Declared Landmine-Free

In 1982, the United Kingdom and Argentina engaged in a 10-week-long undeclared war. The conflict resulted from a dispute over two British dependent territories: the Falkland Islands and the South Sandwich Islands. The Falklands War was relatively short, but it was intense, and one of the outcomes was the widespread use of landmines.

Landmines are one of the worst devices employed in warfare due to their wholly indiscriminate and deadly impact on whoever is unlucky enough to trigger one. Minefields from wars fought long ago remain in place for years, and the civilian population often pays the price with the loss of limbs and lives when mines are triggered.

Most countries have since signed treaties limiting or abolishing their use, but many minefields remain. The Falkland Islands became the home of some 30,000 landmines from the war, and it wasn’t until 1998 that a ratified treaty required their removal. Dangerous demining operations were carried out by hand and continued until October 2020.

The government finally declared the Falkland Islands to be mine-free, with the last site, Gypsy Cove, finalizing its last detonation. The beaches of Gypsy Cove had been off-limits since 1982, but they were finally free of the deadly devices, 38 years after they were first placed.^[7]

3 Dog Adoptions Soared, Thanks To COVID

It’s difficult to find anything good in the COVID-19 pandemic, and while the virus has impacted everyone’s lives negatively, some good has come of it. Shelter adoptions are on the rise, thanks to the void many people feel from being trapped in their homes for the bulk of the year.

The adoption of dogs has significantly increased throughout the United States, as locked-in folks find that they have the time and energy to bring a pet into their lives. The pandemic has created a nice boom for breeders, but it’s also increased pet adoptions from shelters, saving those animals from being destroyed.

Some shelters have seen a doubling of the number of adoptions they usually get in a single day. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Los Angeles saw between ten and 13 adoptions a day in late June.

For the first time in a long time, the “inventory” of shelter animals is running out, and people are being placed on waiting lists to get their hands on a puppy or adult dog. Every animal rescued from a kill shelter is a life saved, so it seems that a little good has come from our exile.^[8]

2 We Found Ways To Adapt And Overcome

COVID-19 may have come along and completely upended our lives, but people have learned to adapt and overcome for the most part. That’s not to say we’ve defeated the virus, but when people found themselves locked inside their homes for months at a time, we found ways to make it work.

Working from home went from being impossible in most businesses to being the norm, and that’s unlikely to change even after the pandemic ends. Things like drive-in movie theaters returned, and drive-in concerts joined in on the fun to become a thing.

People and companies with the know-how to do so changed their production efforts and began making masks for people all over the world, and many continue to do so on a regular basis. Liquor companies began making hand sanitizer to make up the shortfalls, and people from all over the world did what they could to help one another from afar.

While the pandemic may have been entirely negative, at least we found a way to adapt and overcome some of the virus’ impacts on our lives. It hasn’t been easy, but that hasn’t stopped hundreds of thousands of people from doing whatever they could to help others.^[9]

1 The Second-Largest Ebola Outbreak Ended

Because of COVID-19, it’s easy for most folks to overlook a smaller pandemic, and one ran rampant through half the year. The second-largest Ebola outbreak began in August 2018, and the Democratic Republic of Congo fought against it well into 2020.

Ebola is far deadlier than COVID-19, but it is possible to stop its spread, as it is, fortunately, not an airborne virus. Still, it’s incredibly contagious. Whenever it arises in Africa, it often kills a large number of people before it dies out. The Kivu outbreak that lasted two years infected 3,453 people, killing 2,280 of them.

The World Health Organization and volunteers from various agencies descended upon the DRC to fight the outbreak. By February 2020, the cases dwindled down to zero. Unfortunately, three cases emerged 52 days later, and the fight continued well into June.

On June 25th, the pandemic was declared “over,” bringing a two-year nightmare to an end. The largest Ebola outbreak occurred in West Africa between 2014 and 2016. That outbreak resulted in more than 11,000 deaths. Since that outbreak, the development of the rVSV-ZEBOV Ebola vaccine has helped to limit the spread to more vulnerable populations.

The vaccine is 97.5% effective at preventing transmission of Ebola, but distribution efforts have been hampered, making widespread vaccination difficult in the region.^[10]

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Mary I of England was the only surviving child of King Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine. As the Catholic queen of a country that had fallen into religious conflict and established a breakaway church, she saw it as her duty to bring her subjects back under the “true” religion. This led her to persecute hundreds of Protestants after she came to power.

Overshadowed by her sister and successor, the Protestant Elizabeth I, Mary has largely been pushed aside in the public’s imagination. Today, most people associate her reign only with the Marian persecutions, and her chilling moniker, “Bloody Mary,” is probably more famous than she is. But as with most historical figures, there’s more to her story.

Here are ten reasons Mary wasn’t as evil as we’ve been taught.

10 Born into a Divided Family

Mary’s mother was Catherine of Aragon, a Spanish princess who’d been betrothed from a young age to young Arthur of the House of Tudor, then heir to the English throne. Shortly after the marriage, Arthur, in typical medieval fashion, succumbed to an untimely death, leaving the teenaged Catherine a widow in a foreign land. Arthur’s father, Henry VII, was also widowed and considered marrying Catherine himself but eventually proposed she wed his younger son and new heir, the future Henry VIII.

Negotiations over the marriage took so long that by the time it happened, Henry had already succeeded his father, and Catherine was in her twenties. It was into this tangled mess that Mary arrived in 1516 after several failed pregnancies. Her birth came at a time when royal parents were not exactly on the up and up regarding daughters being equal to sons. Altogether, Catherine gave birth to six children, including three sons, but none survived except Mary. The absence of a male heir eventually completely pulled Henry VIII away from his family.^[1]

9 Traumatized as a Teenager by Her Father

With no male heir, Henry VIII grew increasingly obsessed with the topic, seeking desperately to find an explanation for his lack of sons. Renaissance enlightenment principles aside, he concluded that by taking his brother’s widow as his wife, he’d broken the laws of God and been cursed with no heirs, even though the marriage had been sanctioned by the Vatican. Whether he legitimately believed this or simply found it a convenient pretext to remarry, only he knew.

Although Mary was already being educated as heiress presumptive, Henry remained vehemently opposed to a female successor. First, he appealed to the Pope to dissolve his marriage to Catherine. When that failed, he enlisted allies to continue with annulment proceedings domestically, undertook a secret marriage to his mistress, Anne Boleyn, and appointed himself Supreme Head of the Church in England. To uphold the claim that his marriage to Catherine had never been valid to begin with, he delegitimized the teenage Mary and removed her from the line of succession, all before Anne’s first child had even been born.^[2]

8 Humiliated and Forced to Wait on Her Baby Sister

In 1533, Anne gave birth to Elizabeth, her first and only child with Henry. Having been stripped of her royal titles, Mary was further humiliated by being made an attendant to her infant sister, who had replaced her in the line of succession. To make matters worse, Mary’s mother, Catherine, by this point, had been banished from court, and mother and daughter were officially forbidden from communicating.

For years, Mary refused to cave to pressure to accept her illegitimacy and recognize her father as head of the church, a testament to her strength of character in the face of what must have seemed insurmountable odds. Eventually, she did make those pronouncements but sent a secret message to the Pope explaining she’d done so under duress. Despite what Elizabeth’s birth and position represented for her, Mary loved her sister and was influential in getting her back on good terms with their father after he executed Elizabeth’s mother, Anne, for treason.^[3]

7 Spared the Life of Her Usurper

After Henry VIII’s third wife, Jane Seymour, gave birth to a son named Edward, Mary assumed she’d never be queen. If all went according to Henry’s plan, Edward would succeed him and have sons of his own. And Mary would live the life of any ordinary princess. Edward did become king but lived only a few years after that, dying in his teens of a respiratory illness, having neither married nor had children. Although their father had reinstated Mary to the line of succession, Edward again removed her as he lay dying, not because he didn’t want a female heir but because he didn’t want her to undo the work of the Reformation, in which he’d been brought up.

Edward and Mary’s sister Elizabeth had also been raised Protestant, like Edward, but legally it would’ve been inadvisable to exclude only Mary, who held the stronger claim as the eldest. To this end, he also bypassed Elizabeth and instead designated his Protestant cousin, Jane Grey, as heir. After Edward’s death, Jane’s reign lasted a matter of days, with Mary rallying supporters and marching on London. Knowing Jane had only followed orders, Mary spared her life. Tragically, Jane remained a pawn in the conspirators’ dealings and eventually was put to death to thwart further attempts to unseat Mary.^[4]

6 Courageous and Trailblazing for the Time

Although feminism wasn’t exactly a hot topic in Mary’s time, her life was as close an example to it as we might expect for a sixteenth-century queen. In one of her most daring moments, Mary fled to a loyalist outpost as soon as she heard that her brother, Edward VI, was near death. If she’d remained nearby, she’d have been imprisoned and prevented from ascending the throne by Edward’s supporters, spelling the end of the Tudor dynasty. She was bold, decisive, and politically astute in an era when women were chiefly praised for modesty and obedience.

As Henry VIII’s eldest surviving heir, Mary based her claim to the throne on legitimacy, sidelining the topic of religion. This gained her support from both Catholics and Protestants. Both the common people and gentry came to her side, and Jane Grey’s government fell apart within days. Not long after Mary’s proclamation, Parliament passed an act enshrining the full and absolute power of the crown irrespective of gender, establishing equal rights between kings and queens regnant.^[5]

5 Guided by the Religious Conventions of Her Time

Today, we’d be horrified at the idea of burning someone at the stake for any reason, let alone their religious beliefs. But Mary grew up in a time when the importance of practicing the true religion was a matter of salvation. She believed her brother’s death proved God wanted a Catholic on the throne. Seeing the Pope as God’s representative on earth, she rejected the title of Supreme Head of the Church.

For Mary, finding herself on a throne she thought she’d never ascend was a vindication of her beliefs. To allow England to continue its course of separation from the Vatican would’ve been an affront to her duties as sovereign. Protestants who refused to convert back to Catholicism paid with their lives in a gruesome manner, but everything Mary had been taught told her it was her obligation to root out heresy in her dominions.^[6]

4 No Different from Other Monarchs of the Age

Giving someone the title “Bloody Mary” conjures up images of a cold, ruthless killer. And though you might argue the shoe fits, the truth is Mary was no different from other monarchs of the time when it came to eliminating disobedient subjects. In pursuit of his ambition to leave his marriage and father sons with other women, Henry VIII, who never quite reconciled his Catholic upbringing with his zeal for reform, put both Catholics and reformers to death, including death by burning.

Mary’s successor, Elizabeth I, not only executed many of her own subjects but even put to death a fellow queen. While it’s true that Mary’s infamous burnings reached almost 300 in a short period, Elizabeth once ordered over twice as many executions after quashing a Catholic rebellion early on in her rule. Of course, neither sister ever reached the dizzying heights of their father. By the end of his 36-year reign, Henry VIII had executed an estimated 57,000 people, a bone-chilling average of 1,500 death sentences a year. Among the victims were two of his own wives. And these numbers leave out what was happening in other parts of the world whose leaders were often even more brutal.^[7]

3 Counter-Reformation Was Popular During Her Reign

Since it was ultimately unsuccessful, it’s easy to imagine Mary’s attempt to re-Catholicize England as unpopular, but the truth is it wasn’t. Of course, those who subscribed to the principles of the Reformation were opposed, but Mary came to the throne less than a quarter-century after her father’s break with Rome. At that time, the question of religion in England was far from resolved, with Catholics still outnumbering Protestants.

Before Mary even set out her religious policy, news of her accession brought the revival of Catholic Mass in churches across the realm. She was no tyrant either—Parliament largely supported Mary’s policies and repealed most of her brother’s and father’s reforms. Eighteen months into her reign, England was fully realigned with the Catholic Church. Had Mary produced an heir, the child would’ve been raised Catholic, the Reformation may have fizzled out, and the restoration would’ve gone down in history as a cornerstone of her reign.^[8]

2 Laid the Groundwork for Some of Her Successor’s Achievements

Mary’s reign has largely been characterized by historians as ineffective and backward-looking, but these are oversimplifications. The two biggest “failures” of Mary’s reign—attempting to re-Catholicize England and the loss of the historically English territory of Calais in France—are often judged out of context (as we’ve already seen concerning the restoration). Future English monarchs presided over the loss of territories much more extensive than Calais, but it didn’t define their reigns, nor was it seen as evidence of their unsuitability.

In fact, Mary was a conscientious monarch who worked tremendously hard. Although her marriage to a foreigner was initially unpopular, she ensured her rights as queen were not ceded to her husband. During her reign, she undertook reforms in the navy as well as in coinage and the militia, reendowed several hospitals, and established a groundbreaking trading company with Russia. A revised customs book increased crown revenue and remained in effect through the reign of her successor. She also had plans drawn up for currency reform, which were carried out after her death.^[9]

1 Died Too Soon to Consolidate Her Policies

Despite having suffered from ailments of the reproductive system for years, Mary was eager to birth an heir and secure the succession. In 1554, she married the future Philip II of Spain, but the union produced no children. Although Mary was genuinely in love with her husband, by the time it was apparent she wouldn’t become pregnant, he’d retreated to his own dominions abroad. His absence affected her greatly, perhaps eliciting bitter memories of abandonment from her youth.

Only five years into her reign, Mary died during a flu epidemic at 42, having spent the last months of her life suffering from the same chronic disorders that had plagued her since adolescence. With no heir of her own, she had no one to carry on her legacy, and her reign proved much too short for her policies to take effect. Although considered illegitimate by Catholics, her sister Elizabeth was crowned in 1559 and soon reestablished the Protestant church. Her reign has largely gone down in history as a golden age, in sharp contrast with Mary’s.

It’s often said that history is written by the victors. Mary I of England, whose motto as queen was “Truth, the daughter of time,” would probably agree.^[10]