History paints me in heretic red

forever known as the Bloody Queen

Mary of England, but once upon a time

I was the sparkle in my Tudor

father's eye, my Spanish mother

so devoted, lovingly placed

me in the care of her most loyal friend and supporter.

Under Lady Margaret's tutelage

I bloomed like an English rose

she kept me at my lessons and psalter

A gentle reminder of my noble position.

Known as the wilted old maid

Yet, once upon a time

I was beautiful and kind

But my youth spent betrothed

to nothing but worthless tokens

and promises broken.

As the years wore down

on my small delicate frame

Depression, anxiety, and a status

reduced, a princess of England, no longer

replaced by the Great Whore's bastard daughter.

Banned from my father's adulterous sight

placed in Elizabeth's infant shadow

Cut off from my loving Spanish mother

not even a letter, must I dare

to my dying mother

at the leaky castle of Kimbolton.

So who, pray tell, would take

this Tudor king's sorely reduced princess?

Oh sure, there were those

A political chess piece to the throne

is what I sadly become. While Henry VIII

stood groom, wedded in all, to six.

But I, Queen Mary, ask

was I never to have my own

Once upon a time moment?

My larger than life father

Wedded were he wanted

And as they say,

The apple doth not fall far from the tree

So I wedded Philip of Spain,

a most handsome Catholic prince.

No babe was born of our God

spoken vows, yet how can there be?

This was suppose to be my once upon a time beginning.

My husband is far too young for me, he wants nothing

Of this old maid,I see those ferret

eyes, of his glow when

the Whore's bastard wafts in.

So there the tower kept her well

As Spanish counselors call

for her head to roll as Anne Boylen's did

My sister she is, unfortunately

this Protestant is my heir.

Only if I could bare

to turn this cancerous mass

into a living breathing healthy son.

But alas, my only legacy

is the burning flesh of heretics.