She was loved by the Catholics - at least those who could stomach her bloodlust. You do know what happened to her ‘marriage’?
I am just speaking on history. She could never have united the people. Elizabeth did. I am no fan of Elizabeth I but that is the truth.
Just my bit, totally digressing, my apologies to all.
Elizabeth uniting England is a myth. There was never more fracturing and division then during Elizabeth’s reign. Elizabeth’s government did one thing well, and that was propaganda. Her image and legacy is a result of that propaganda and so is the usual myth of Tudor England’s history - “Bloody Mary” included.
Queen Mary did not have a bloodlust. Most of the reformers were in London and it was in London that she galvinized her support. Compare that to the Council that ruled in Edward VI’s name while he was a boy. During the Prayer Book rebellion the Crown’s treasury was depleted in order to hire armies of foreign mercenaries to put down the rebellion. They did so and thousands of Englishmen and their families were slain. These are all martyrs. The supposed Englishness of the Reformation was betrayed and shown for what it was. Queen Mary did not resort to foreign arms to establish her government and even salvaged that government by recruiting from the notorious hot bed and centre of the reformers in England: London. The Catholics were most staunchly entrenched not in that city but to the North (where the Pilgramage of Grace sprung up during Henry’s reign).
You have to recall the context Queen Mary lived in. The preceding government was filled with people that were absolutely hated by the people because they had gorged themselves off of the Church and the common people with crushing taxes. The revolution begun by Henry VIII had created a whole new class of people that profited immensely from the break with Rome and had a vested interest in not seeing that break reversed. The resistance Queen Mary met was absolutely confined to such people; whereas, the resistance met by Henry VIII and Edward VI’s government consisted entirely of the common people: their difficulty was finding nobles who would lead and support them but, unfortunately, most of these had profited from the religious revolution and acquired vast new lands as a result. G.K Chesterton, commenting on the English Reformation, called it “the revolt of the rich.” The vast majority of Englishmen were Catholic and remained with their Catholic sensibilities and this is largely why Anglicanism is so markedly different from its Continental counterparts.
You can easily count the Protestants that were burned for heresy during Henry’s or Queen Mary’s reigns; however, trying to count all the Catholics that died for their Faith during the Tudor period is virtually impossible. You have the tens of thousands of men and their families that died because of the Pilgrimage of Grace and because of the Prayer Book rebellion; you have all the usual Catholic martyrs who resisted the break and lost their heads for it under Henry, Edward and Elizabeth; you have the countless priests and religious who died under Henry and again under Elizabeth I. You have all of the religious who were forced out of their monasteries (thousands of them) and onto the streets when their lands were confiscated. These had no trades to work in, nowhere to go, and we simply have no idea how many of them starved or froze to death and how many fell victim to the disgusting laws that were passed by parliament on account of the rising tide of homelessness and beggars when the Church was being liquidated and all the charity she dispensed ceased. The poor who relied on the Church (the only welfare institution that existed then) were all now completely destitute, and all those who relived the poor (the religious) were further added to their ranks.
England during the Tudor era was soaked in the blood of Catholics and today I am constantly reminded of the truth that it is the victors who write the history.
:banghead:
