Mary I of England

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• Her majesty, being now in possession of her imperial crown and estate pertaining to it, cannot forsake that faith that the whole world knows her to have followed and practiced since her birth; she desires, rather, by God's grace, to preserve it till her death; and she desires greatly that her subjects may come to embrace the same faith quietly and with charity, whereby she shall receive great happiness.
  • Proclamation concerning Religion (1553-08-18)

• When I am dead and opened, you shall find Calais lying in my heart.
  • Said during her final illness, referring to England's loss of Calais to France
  • Raphael Holinshed, The Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland, vol. III, page 1160 (1587) http://dewey.lib.upenn.edu/sceti/PrintedBooksnew/index.cfm?TextID=holinshed_chronicle&PagePosition=2398

About Mary I of England

• It was an ancient and commonly received practice, (derived from the civil law, and which also to this day obtains in the kingdom of France) that, as counsel was not allowed to any prisoner accused of a capital crime, so neither should he be suffered to exculpate himself by the testimony of any witnesses. And therefore it deserves to be remembered, to the honour of Mary I, (whose early sentiments, till her marriage with Philip of Spain, seem to have been humane and generous) that when she appointed sir Richard Morgan chief justice of the common-pleas, she injoined him, “that notwithstanding the old error, which did not admit any witness to speak, or any other matter to be heard, in favour of the adversary, her majesty being party; her highness' pleasure was, that whatsoever could be brought in favour of the subject should be admitted to be heard: and moreover, that the justices should not persuade themselves to fit in judgment otherwise for her highness than for her subject."
  • William Blackstone, Commentary on the Laws of England (1765-1769), Bk IV, ch. 27