Why did bloody Mary chop peoples heads off?

Answer 1

It boils down to her religious beliefs. Her father broke from the Catholic Church in order to divorce her mother, set her aside after years and years of marriage, and marry a low-born "slut." (Anne Boleyn. Who I feel has been misjudged by the world, but that's a different story). So when Mary became Queen, she married her cousin's son, Prince Philip II of Spain. Spain was a very Catholic country, and to prove her devotion to the cause, she persecuted her subjects who refused to convert back to Catholicism and tried them on the charge of Heresy, the punishment for which was death. To be fair, she did not cut their heads off. She had them burned at the stake. (much more dramatic, and a much more miserable way to die.) However, she was going through the law; it wasn't a personal vendetta, she truly thought these people were heretics whose souls were in peril. Also, she is not entirely to blame; her husband had a lot to do with the policy of burning Protestants at the stake. However, her successor and younger sister Queen Elizabeth handled the situation much more gracefully. Although England returned to Protestantism under her reign, she did not go out of her way to persecute Catholics living in her country as long as they did not flaunt their religious beliefs.

Answer 2

The question is related to the real Bloody Mary, Queen Mary I. There is also the urban legend of the ghost that can be summoned from a mirror.

The REAL Bloody Mary had 283 religious protesters burned alive, in addition to others whose execution she may have ordered. Bloody indeed!