{"product_id":"2940015830309","title":"The Reign of Mary Tudor","description":"{p.vii} INTRODUCTION\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe memory of no English sovereign has been so execrated as that of\u003cbr\u003eMary Tudor. For generations after her death her name, with its horrid\u003cbr\u003eepithet clinging round it like the shirt of Nessus, was a bugbear in\u003cbr\u003ethousands of Protestant homes. It is true that nearly 300 persons were\u003cbr\u003eburnt at the stake in her short reign. But she herself was more\u003cbr\u003einclined to mercy than almost any of her predecessors on the throne.\u003cbr\u003eStubbs speaks of her father's \"holocausts\" of victims. The persecution\u003cbr\u003eof Papists under Edward was not less rigorous than that of Protestants\u003cbr\u003eunder Mary. When her record is compared with that of Philip of Spain,\u003cbr\u003ewith his Council of Blood in the Netherlands, or of Charles IX. in\u003cbr\u003eFrance, she appears as an apostle of toleration. Why, then, has her\u003cbr\u003ememory been covered through centuries with scorn and obloquy?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFroude will have it that it was due to a national detestation of the\u003cbr\u003ecrimes which were committed in the name of religion. Those who take a\u003cbr\u003emore detached view of history can find little evidence to support the\u003cbr\u003eassumption. The nation as a whole seemed to acquiesce in the\u003cbr\u003epersecution. The government was weak, there was no standing army, and\u003cbr\u003eMary, like all the Tudors, rested her authority on popular sanction.\u003cbr\u003ePlots against her were few, and they were all easily suppressed.\u003cbr\u003eParliament met regularly. It was not the submissive parliament of\u003cbr\u003eHenry VIII. It thwarted some of Mary's dearest projects. For some time\u003cbr\u003eit offered opposition to, if it did not actively resist, the Spanish\u003cbr\u003emarriage. It was inexorably opposed to the restitution of church\u003cbr\u003eproperty. It refused to alter the succession to the Crown as Mary\u003cbr\u003ewished. But it never remonstrated against the persecution of\u003cbr\u003eProtestants. It cheerfully revived the old acts for the burning of\u003cbr\u003eLollard heretics. Froude suggests that Englishmen were aghast at the\u003cbr\u003euse to which they were afterwards put. But though parliament after\u003cbr\u003eparliament was summoned after the Smithfield fires had been lit, there\u003cbr\u003ewas no sign of disapproval or of condemnation. When Edward died, there\u003cbr\u003ewas an instantaneous return to Catholicism. When Mary died, Elizabeth\u003cbr\u003e{p.viii} had to walk warily in bringing about innovations in\u003cbr\u003ereligion. Mary was crowned with the ceremonies of the Catholic Church.\u003cbr\u003eWhen Elizabeth was crowned, nearly all the bishops, including the\u003cbr\u003e\"bloody\" Bonner, attended, and the service of the mass was used.\u003cbr\u003eHarpsfield, the notorious Archdeacon of Canterbury, the last man to\u003cbr\u003econdemn heretics to the stake in England, publicly stated, weeks after\u003cbr\u003ethe accession of Elizabeth, that there should be no change in\u003cbr\u003ereligion. Later generations, judging events and characters by their\u003cbr\u003eown standard, have pitilessly condemned the Marian persecutions. The\u003cbr\u003eEnglishmen of those days were not so squeamish or so indifferent.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47121276535024,"sku":"2940015830309","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940015830309","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}