The Reign of Mary Tudor

Reign of Mary Tudor, by James
Anthony Froude

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Title: The Reign of Mary Tudor
Author: James Anthony Froude
Editor: Ernest Rhys
Release Date: September 9, 2007 [EBook #22546]
Language: English
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EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY EDITED BY ERNEST RHYS
HISTORY
FROUDE'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
MARY TUDOR · INTRODUCTION BY W. LLEWELYN
WILLIAMS M.P., B.C.L.

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ROMANCE
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London: J. M. DENT & SONS, Ltd. New York: E. P. DUTTON & CO.

"CONSIDER HISTORY WITH THE BEGINNINGS OF IT
STRETCHING DIMLY INTO THE REMOTE TIME; EMERGING
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SCRIPTURE...."
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THE REIGN of MARY TUDOR by JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE
LONDON: PUBLISHED by J. M. DENT & SONS Ltd AND IN NEW
YORK BY E. P. DUTTON & CO

{p.vii} INTRODUCTION
The memory of no English sovereign has been so execrated as that of
Mary Tudor. For generations after her death her name, with its horrid
epithet clinging round it like the shirt of Nessus, was a bugbear in
thousands of Protestant homes. It is true that nearly 300 persons were
burnt at the stake in her short reign. But she herself was more inclined
to mercy than almost any of her predecessors on the throne. Stubbs
speaks of her father's "holocausts" of victims. The persecution of
Papists under Edward was not less rigorous than that of Protestants
under Mary. When her record is compared with that of Philip of Spain,
with his Council of Blood in the Netherlands, or of Charles IX. in
France, she appears as an apostle of toleration. Why, then, has her
memory been covered through centuries with scorn and obloquy?
Froude will have it that it was due to a national detestation of the
crimes which were committed in the name of religion. Those who take
a more detached view of history can find little evidence to support the
assumption. The nation as a whole seemed to acquiesce in the
persecution. The government was weak, there was no standing army,
and Mary, like all the Tudors, rested her authority on popular sanction.
Plots against her were few, and they were all easily suppressed.
Parliament met regularly. It was not the submissive parliament of
Henry VIII. It thwarted some of Mary's dearest projects. For some time
it offered opposition to, if it did not actively resist, the Spanish

marriage. It was inexorably opposed to the restitution of church
property. It refused to alter the succession to the Crown as Mary wished.
But it never remonstrated against the persecution of Protestants. It
cheerfully revived the old acts for the burning of Lollard heretics.
Froude suggests that Englishmen were aghast at the use to which they
were afterwards put. But though parliament after parliament was
summoned after the Smithfield fires had been lit, there was no sign of
disapproval or of condemnation. When Edward died, there was an
instantaneous return to Catholicism. When Mary died, Elizabeth {p.viii}
had to walk warily in bringing about innovations in religion. Mary was
crowned with the ceremonies of the Catholic Church. When Elizabeth
was crowned, nearly all the bishops, including the "bloody" Bonner,
attended, and the service of the mass was used. Harpsfield, the
notorious Archdeacon of Canterbury, the last man to condemn heretics
to the stake in England, publicly stated, weeks after the accession of
Elizabeth, that there should be no change in religion. Later generations,
judging events and characters by their own standard, have pitilessly
condemned the Marian persecutions. The Englishmen of those days
were not so squeamish or so indifferent.
There can be no doubt that Mary was unpopular among her