Kevin de Ataíde’s Reviews > Fires of Faith: Catholic England Under Mary Tudor > Status Update

The defence of the burnings of the protestant dissidents presented by the government, including the counter-witness to their rudeness in the martyrdom of S. Thomas More. Duffy identifies this magnification of More with Cardinal Pole's review of the English reformation.

The absolutely wretchedness of proceeding as judges against the protestants, especially when they were the simpler type and had been baited and led on by greater people who had 'turned Catholic' for convenience and wanted to keep up their façade.

On the business of hunting heretics, with the most enthusiastic of the Queen's men only active in a few areas. For whatever reason, the burnings were not as abundant as they might have been. Either the bishops or the Queen's Council (probably both) were fighting to save souls, as they saw it, rather than eagerly dispatching bodies.

On the hearings and attempts to bring the protestants to their sentences, with scant information from the later martyrological work of Foxe. The government seems to have worked hard, especially in protestant heartlands, like London, and almost unprepared for the pride of the men who almost willingly went into the flames.

And now the burnings, probably the one thing you would hear about Mary's reign, repeatedly endlessly by her detractors. And yet, she was not in her approach unlike other European rulers of the time, when religion and politics were intertwined and the machinations of the protestants were causing actual social unrest and disruption.

And here we discover the immense catechetical apparatus of the English government under Queen Mary, using the printing press to pump out books to undo the protestant errors of the reign of King Edward. If only they had had more time; even another ten years...

I'm very glad for this reappraisal of the reign of Queen Mary, whose great works were quickly dismantled by her successor, Elizabeth Tudor. Elizabeth's propaganda machine was then all too successful in destroying Mary's reputation. I'm interested to see Duffy's commentary on the burning of the two hundred and something protestants who refused to fall in line with Mary's attempt at restoring Catholic England.