Talk:Marian Persecutions
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[edit] Erroneous link.
The George Marsh link takes you to the entry of George Perkins Marsh, an American philologist and diplomat who lived in the 19th century and not an English Protestant who was burnt at the stake by Queen Mary. Nothingbutmeat 11:43, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
- Fixed -- SECisek 07:18, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
[edit] One more.
The William Flower link is also incorrect. Nothingbutmeat 11:45, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
- Fixed -- SECisek 07:18, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Roman Catholic Recognition
I know that the Anglican church recognises St Thomas More as a saint, but does the Roman Catholic church have any views on the Marian Martyrs? Are they included amongst the the "English Martyrs" they venerate? 86.41.187.247 13:21, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
- In a word: no. -- SECisek 07:18, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Context
This article claims ...she does not seem to have killed any more for religious dissent than other Tudors. However the Bloody Mary (person) article claims:
- ...she executed more than twice as many as had been executed for this crime over the preceding century and a half.
Which claim is right?--Johnbull 00:17, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
My understanding is that whilst other Tudor monarchs executed similar numbers, they did so over a much longer period - Mary's reign being for only 5 years. Nylarathotep (talk) 20:57, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
Isn't the real issue that Mary executed for heresy, even if the person was no threat whatsoever, while other monarchs executions were more about treason and threat. Mary tended to persecute people who were clearly no threat, and indeed not in her political interest to execute rather than others for whom religious persecution was politically motivated.
Mary executed people because of their religious beliefs per se rather than the outworking of them. Popular sentiment is more sympathetic to a monarch wanting to execute people who because of their religious beliefs might want to overthrow them, but executing old men and women who were not really a threat to anyone appears pointless. I think this context needs greater emphasis in the article.
Really no. Firstly, to Mary (a devout Catholic), such persons WERE a threat. To the Catholic faith and the English Catholicism she believed in. From a purely pragmatic point of view, the conflation of religion and politics in the early modern period ensured religious instability effectively equated to political instability - the mere presence of such belief was perceived as detrimental to the nation, viz. unauthorised meetings, recognition of alternative authority, the principle of cuius regio, eius religio, and so on. Secondly, although I myself make no judgement on this, Mary believed, as did most Catholics (I'm not sure re. other denominations), that burning gave heretics the greatest possible chance of redemption - on the grounds that those who experienced 'the fires of Hell' would make them repent and thus gain salvation - the alternative being that Hell fire in perpetuity. No offence intented, but your point of view is mistakenly anachronistic. Consider, for example, the forced conversion of Shylock in Shakespeare's TMOV - to us, it is an infringement on his human rights, to Antonio, it is salvation. Nylarathotep (talk) 20:57, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
Also argh, this article needs a lot of work and removal of POV. I'll do some now, but don't really have the resources to rewrite the entire thing (as the UL and Seeley are unavailable over the vacation ;)) Nylarathotep (talk) 21:04, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Alternative text for this page
- Copied from Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2007 August 18 for incorporation into the text. --Ghirla-трёп- 23:16, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
There is an understandable tendency, I suppose, to read history backwords; to assume, in other words, a given set of outcomes; that what is is what had to be. But do remember that when Mary came to the throne in 1553 Protestantism was still a fairly recent graft on to the English tree, and not all that popular, if the Pilgrimage of Grace can be considered as an accurate measure of the national mood. The ease with which Mary swept aside the challenge of Lady Jane Grey and her tiny Protestant party provides additional confirmation, if any such is needed, that there were no real fears of a Catholic restoration.
So Mary was very well placed at the outset of her reign to return England permanently to the Roman faith. Most people had little in the way of deep emotional attachment to the reformed religion, and were quite happy to observe the outward and conventional forms of belef. Even at their height the Marian persecutions only embraced a tiny proportion of the population. But the persecutions and the burnings, as is the way with these things, were completely counter-productive: they did more to foster anti-Catholicism than any Protestant propaganda.
As early as October 1553, Simon Renard, the Ambassador of the Holy Roman Empire, wrote that "It is easy to forsee that there will be difficulty in repressing heretics without causing scandal...The thing most to be feared is that the Queen may be moved by her religious ardour and zeal to attempt to set matters right at one stroke, for this cannot be done in the case of a people that has drunk so deep in error." The subsequent burnings were to confirm all of his fears, as the dominant mood among the thousands who witnessed these auto-da-fe seems, for the most part, to have been one of sympathy and anger. Foxe's later accounts of the martyrdoms is undeniably biased; but it finds support in contemporary accounts by Catholic observers. Giovani Micheli, the Venetian ambassador, who witnessed the burning of Rowland Taylor, wrote that the people were so angry that they planned to set fire to the houses "and raise a great tumult; not merely to release the Doctor from the stake, but to punish and revenge themselves on those whose religion was opposed to their own." When he left England in 1557 he noted that "the public mind is more than ever irritated."
It wasn't just ordinary people who were repelled by the burnings. A reading of the Acts of the Privy Council uncovers many examples of local officials less than enthusiastic in the enforcement of the heresy laws. Action had to be taken against jailers who allowed Protestant prisoners to escape. In 1557 letters were sent out to sheriffs and baliffs throughout the home counties, asking why sentences for heresy were not being carried out. Sir John Butler, the sheriff of Essex, was fined £10 for allowing his deputy to reprieve a woman sentenced to burning. Some, like Thomas Causton, were inspired by example-"Ye say that the Bishops lately burnt were heretics. I pray God make me such a heretic as they were."
Even some of those close to the Queen could see that things were going badly. Stephen Gardiner, the bishop of Winchester, had believed that if an example was made of a few of the leading Protestants that the rest would be frightened into conformity. When this failed to happen he ended burnings in his own diocese. Those who were frightened into conformity elsewhere observed only the outward forms of Catholic belief, as Micheli and others made note, which explains why the Marian counter-reformation was so easily and quickly put into reverse when Elizabeth came to the throne.
But there is also another factor to be drawn in here, the one thing above all others that explains why Mary's policy was so counter-productive. Persecution had worked elsewhere in Europe, particularly in Catholic Austria, in reducing the appeal of heresy; but only when force was accompanied by persuasion; by an active evangelical mission. In England this simply did not happen, or at least not to any significant degree. Quite simply the church lacked the means. All of the land and wealth lost during the Dissolution of the Monasteries was not returned; for to do so would have been a challenge to the interests and power of the nobility; and that, even for Mary, was a step too far. Reginald Pole, had pressed for this, with no success; for the beneficiaries of the redistribution had included many Catholics, as well as Protestants. There was no money, so there was no mission; only the terror-and the example-of the burnings.
Mary lacked money; she also lacked time. Her early death from cancer in 1558 ended the counter-reformation. More than that, the failure of Mary's reign, the examples and the lessons it provided, were to be the foundations for the Elizabethan Reformation, more complete and lasting in every way. Clio the Muse 03:18, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Maybe, but. . .
I agree that this would be better than the existing text, provided that numerous detailed citations are supplied (e.g. protestantism was "not all that popular": as per Wikipedia Policy, supply the precise results of the quantitative survey on which this conclusion is based).
But I see a problem: a Neutral Point of View may require a very short article, because the title of the article is itself an expression of a particular (some might say extreme) point of view. An article is needed, because the general reader will encounter the expression "Marian Persecution", and will want to "look it up". The article needs to say that the subject refers to a particular series of executions, that they occurred during the reign of Mary I (not under her!), and that people were executed primarily because they were unrepentent Protestants. The Book of Martyrs needs to be mentioned as the means whereby the cultural memory of the events was perpetuated and amplified.
However, discussion of historical background, causes, motivations, discussions of whether the "executions per annum" were above or below average, etc need to be left to articles on the history of the period (e.g. History of England, Mary I). If the article title had been "Religious persecution in the Tudor period" then more commentary might be justifed, but anything more than a brief factual account of something like "Marian Persecutions" invites unresolvable Point of View warfare. . . .LinguisticDemographer 10:37, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Claims about burning don't stand up to facts=
How can one claim that Calvinists didn't burn people given the way Michael Servetus was executed? It's true that Calvin argued for merely decapitating Servetus, but in the end, he was burnt to death.
I also find claims that burning was unusual in England hard to believe, given that people were burned under Henry VIII and Edward VI. To give just one example, John Forest was burnt alive on 22 May 1538, with Hugh Latimer presiding, and with a fairly famous pilgramage image, Davell Gadern, used as the fuel for the fire.
I have removed this bit: Second, she used burning more than would be used by most English kings. This horrified Protestants as Catholic persecutions of early "heretics" used burning as the method of execution. Therefore many in the Protestant camp came to see burning, rather than killing religious dissenters itself, to be the barbaric act[citation needed]. Therefore when Protestants gained power they generally favored hanging, flogging, shooting, or even eye-gouging as the preferred method of executing religious dissenters. Likewise Catholic kings before her tended to use beheading, being drawn and quartered, and hanging as execution methods. The image of burning as the greatest emblem of religious persecution would continue in the English speaking world long after it stopped being popularly related to Catholic actions. Hence Calvinist killing of suspected witches is often referred to as "witch-burning" despite the fact most Calvinists rejected burning anyone as being a "Papist" practice.[citation needed]
The person claiming that Mary was much more likely to kill someone for heresy than for treason is missing the reality that under all the Tudors, heresy was treason.
A Nonny Mouse —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.176.142.101 (talk) 17:19, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
