Does Mary Tudor Deserve The Nickname 'Bloody Mary'?

Mary 1 did not deserve the title ‘Bloody Queen Mary’ because.....
• She had endured a life of bitterness and rejection, barely ever seeing her mother who had been banned from the throne. She was also made illegitimate for the throne. This made her a very sad person, so the way she was brought up coloured her actions
• She was brought up as a very strong Catholic, so only killed people who opposed her rights
• People in those days enjoyed public executions, so was also sort of entertaining them.
• Most of the people were glad to be returning to the Catholic faith, so she was only taking down the people who stood in the way of her subjects and their faiths.
• Henry VIII, her father, killed many more people, (57,000) not always for a certain reason, so he deserved to have been called ‘Bloody King Henry’ more than Queen Mary, who only killed less than 300.
• Some of the people she killed were committing treason, for which there was then a death penalty, anyway.
• Mary was trying to keep her religion, Catholicism, safe from the Protestants, and did her best to protect what she believed in.
• Religion was everything in those days, and killings over religion were not uncommon.
• Many people believed that the only way to purify a body and give it a chance to go to heaven was to get burned at the stake after treason. The soul would then be released at God’s mercy, so she was actually trying to send all her subjects to Heaven not Hell.
• Another explanation is that she may have carried a disease that made people bleed through their pores.
• Maybe she was trying to prove a point, so that if anyone else were to do something bad, they might think twice about the consequences.
• She was only trying to do what was best for the country, and ruling a country is hard trying to do the right thing all the time.
• When she burnt the Protestants at the stake, she actually thought that she was doing the right thing and that, just before they died, they would be able to see the error of their ways and would change and be sent to heaven.
• She kept on having phantom pregnancies, so would be angered by that, for not being able to produce a male air. People tend to make rash decisions and do rash things when angered.
• She was criticised for burning people. This may have angered her into burning more people at the stake to defy the criticisers.

No, because she was:
Emotionally Unstable (from when she was young)
She kept on having phantom pregnancies
Her husband kept on leaving her to go to Spain
She was lonely
She was criticised for burning people
Her husband thought she was unattractive

Thats why Mary 1 didn't deserve the nickname "Bloody Mary"

On the other hand, this
shows Mary is not as evil as she is portrayed to be and is not deserving of her
title because she was not the only monarch who had killed people for religious
reasons or what they wanted. Mary was not the only monarch to execute people
for religious reasons. Henry VIII reigned for 38 years and had 81 people
burned, 25,000 people executed. Edward in 6 years had 2 people burned,
Elizabeth, who reigned after Mary, had 5 people burned in 44 years and 300
people hanged in one rebellion against her. This informs us that she was maybe
not wicked as people say she is, because other previous monarchs executed
people, (execution was a very common form of punishment at the time), for
religious reasons and for things to go their way, just like any other
monarchs.Wyatts rebellion was defeated because the people of London rallied to
Marys cause and stopped him entering London. After being defeated he was executed,
but his men and Elizabeth were spared. This tells us that if Mary was really as
ruthless as she is said to be people at the time would not have rallied to save
here and she would not have spared his army, full of Protestants and Elizabeth,
because she had a valid reason for her to be executed, which would have ended
the chance of Elizabeth to take the throne.

Mary commited crimes, killing people because of the faith. She was the only English monarch who organized genuine religious presecutions. As Eric Ives writes, 'In population terms, the number of deaths was equivalent to 6,000 today... Until Mary's presecution, execution for heresy had been uncommon in England. Despite the 1401 statute, most Lollards escaped by recanting. In the early sixteen century there were deaths, but still comparatively few. Between 1540 and 1546 even the notorious Six Articles took only thirty-three lives... In the first full year of Mary's presecution (February 1555 to January 1556) there were eighty-seven burnings... The presecution was also exceptional by European standards". (Ives "The Reformation Experience"). Mary was more bloody than her father. Henry burned 33 people for six years (1540-1546), Mary - 284 for three years and ten months (1555-1558). During 1532-1540 308 people were executed for political reasons, because of their opposition to governmental policy. (Elton "Policy and Police"). 178 out of these 308 were participants of the Pilgrimage of Grace and other northern risings. If we exclude them we will have the figure of 130 people (Anne Boleyn, Poles and other famous people among them). They were political victims of Henry VIII during 8 very difficult years, at the height of his Reformation. Mary surpassed these figures. Besides, if we compare executions after rebellions during Henry's and Mary's reigns we will see that the daughter acted more severely. Henry executed 178 rebels in 1537, Mary - 150 in 1554. But in the Pilgrimage of Grace took part 30,000 - 40,000 people. In the rebellion against Mary -only 3,000. Among the victims of the Catholic reaction under Mary there were teenagers and old people, men and women, even one baby. Many were invalids. Mary deserved to be called "Bloody".

I don't think she does coz although she killed 284 Protestants, she gave them the opportunity to leave the country first and to basically save themselves and their families from getting burnt.  Also, her relationship with Phillip wasn't great so her relationships could have influenced her actions!

Hope this helps!