Mary’s lifelong residence in England allowed her a totally English identification. Although Mary took pride in her royal Spanish heritage, derived from her mother, her position as Henry VIII’s eldest daughter carried the same representational force in Tudor society as the Empress’s identification with her father four centuries earlier. While Mary and Elizabeth put much stock in their positions as Henry VIII’s daughters, upon their accessions this status was not clouded by any foreign elements that the xenophobic English commonly found distasteful. Indeed, Mary’s cousin and former fiancé, the emperor Charles V, sixteen years her senior, doled out fatherly advice to Mary, suggesting she create the perception that she was “a good Englishwoman, wholly bent on the kingdom’s welfare”. Mary’s position as Henry VIII’s eldest daughter carried with it an almost automatic esteem and respect from her subjects that eluded Matilda upon her father’s death. While the Empress was unable to declare herself queen in England following Henry I’s death, Mary did so in July 11, four days after Edward’s death. Unlike the Empress, restrained by a husband and three small sons, the unmarried Mary chose decisive action. The imperial ambassadors explained her success in a letter to Emperor Charles V, noting, “there is a custom here that a man or a woman who is called to the crown must immediately declare him or herself king or queen”.
