What are the main counter-arguments to this seemingly Protestant-driven portrayal of Mary I of England?
I've read articles proclaiming her brutality in dealing with Protestants, but I've also read other material saying that she wasn't that horrible compared to many other monarchs, and her image is largely the result of Protestant propaganda following her death along with the fact that her reign was short and unable to implement the policies she wanted, and was therefore a failure in that regard.
I have no history background besides a couple of university courses, so I'd be very interested to get an informed perspective on the matter. Thanks very much!
Gay and Webb's Modern Europe: To 1815, which was my AP Euro textbook in high school, says that "the name Bloody Mary, bestowed on Mary Tudor in pure hatred, is only three-quarters deserved," which I think sums it up pretty well. She did, in fact, kill some people for their religious beliefs, but that doesn't mean she was personally a sadist, and Henry VIII and Elizabeth I executed some religious dissenters too. Perhaps the main thing that set Mary apart was that, unlike Henry, she was a sincere religious zealot instead of using religious policy as a political tool. Still, Mary's own father-in-law, Charles V, a Catholic, thought that her religious persecutions went too far (at least in the sense of being politically unwise). On the other hand, the total number of Protestants executed by Mary was around 300 people, not really that high by the standards of contemporary religious persecutions in continental Europe, and certainly not enough to weaken the English Protestant movement much.