Mary I: The Marian Counter-Reformation, Restoring Catholicism (AQA A Level History: Component 1: Breadth study): Revision Note

Summary

• Mary restored Catholicism in two major legislative stages: the First Act of Repeal (1553) and the Second Act of Repeal (1555)

  • The Second Act restored papal authority, but church lands were not returned

• Cardinal Pole directed a genuine reform programme: a better-trained clergy, visitations and new educational standards

• The burnings began in February 1555

  • Around 280–300 Protestants were burned in total, including Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley

  • Foxe's Book of Martyrs (1563) recorded the persecutions in vivid detail

    • It shaped how later generations understood Mary's reign

• Historians disagree on how successful the restoration was:

  • Turvey and Heard argue that Catholicism had genuine popular support

  • The traditional view sees the burnings as a catastrophic political error

The Restoration of Papal Authority & Catholic Doctrine under Mary I

• Mary's religious restoration moved in three clear stages: legislation, then reconciliation with Rome, then practical reform of the Church

Stage one: First Act of Repeal, October 1553

• Parliament repealed all of Edward VI's religious legislation

  • The Church of England was restored to the position it had been in at the time of Henry VIII's death

  • Catholic doctrine was back, but England was still under royal supremacy (not the Pope)

• The act passed with little parliamentary opposition

  • Protestant roots among the parliamentary class were shallower than expected

• Mary was advised not to go further at this stage

  • Restoring papal authority was too large a step to take immediately

Stage two: Second Act of Repeal, January 1555

• Parliament abolished all doctrinal legislation passed since 1529

  • This was a decisive step

  • It included the 1534 Act of Supremacy

    • Henry VIII's break with Rome was formally reversed

• The Pope's authority over the Church in England was restored

  • Cardinal Pole had arrived from exile in November 1554 as papal legate specifically to oversee this reunion

• Parliament formally accepted papal authority over the English Church

• A crucial limitation:

  • The Second Act of Repeal did not restore Church lands

    • Monastic and chantry properties sold since the 1530s remained in private hands

    • The parliamentary class and gentry who had bought former Church property would not vote to give it back

    • This was the price of parliamentary cooperation, and it permanently weakened the restored Church

  • Pole was deeply unhappy about this but recognised it was impossible to reverse

Stage three: reforming the church from within

• Pole directed a genuine programme of internal Church reform, not just restoration of old practices

• Pole's vision

  • Pole wanted genuine reform: better-educated clergy, improved preaching and pastoral care

  • His programme paralleled the principles of the Council of Trent (1545–1563), the wider Catholic reform movement

  • But it needed time, and Mary's reign was only five years

The problem with the reform programme

• The restored Church was structurally weaker than before

  • It had lost its endowments

• Some areas, such as Durham and Lancashire, embraced reform enthusiastically

  • Many others did not

• Pope Paul IV (from 1555) was a hardliner

  • He clashed badly with Pole, eventually declaring him a heretic in 1557

  • This conflict between the Pope and Mary's archbishop severely undermined the Counter-Reformation programme and weakened its authority

• Mary died in 1558, with Pole dying on the same day

  • The reform programme never had time to mature

The Marian Persecutions, 1555–1558: The Burning of Protestants

• The Marian Persecutions were the most controversial aspect of Mary's reign

  • It earned her the nickname of "Bloody Mary", though the term was coined by Protestant propagandists after her death

The legal basis

• Parliament revived the medieval heresy laws in 1554

  • These made it a capital offence to hold heretical views and refuse to recant

  • The same laws had operated under Henry VIII in the 1530s and 1540s

• The executions began in February 1555

The scale and nature of the burnings

• Around 280–300 Protestants were burned in total

• Victims included both high-ranking churchmen and ordinary people, men and women of all social classes

• Most burnings took place in London and the south-east

Key victims

Mary's reasoning

• Mary regarded the executions as necessary to cleanse England of heresy

  • In her view, allowing heretics to live was an act of cruelty to their souls; it left them in error

  • She did not wish to burn Cranmer, but believed she had no option once he withdrew his recantation

• Her advisers were less convinced

  • As the death toll rose, opposition began to appear

  • Simon Renard, the imperial Ambassador, warned Philip II in February 1555 that the speed of the burnings "may well cause a revolt"

The impact of the burnings

• The burnings created Protestant martyrs rather than eliminating Protestant dissent

  • They raised questions about what was so powerful about Protestantism that people were prepared to die for it

  • English Protestants who had fled abroad used this to produce propaganda associating Catholicism with intolerance

• However, the impact must not be overstated

  • Outside of London, there is little evidence of strong reactions

  • The burnings were primarily a London phenomenon

    • In many areas, the restoration of familiar Catholic practices was welcomed

• The history of the burnings has been heavily influenced by Protestant propaganda written after Mary's death, particularly Foxe's Book of Martyrs

Foxe's Book of Martyrs: Propaganda & Legacy

• John Foxe's Book of Martyrs is one of the most influential books in English history

  • It shaped how Protestant England understood the Marian persecutions for generations

What was it?

• John Foxe was an English Protestant who had fled to the continent during Mary's reign

  • He compiled a detailed record of the Protestant martyrs of Mary's reign

• The book was first published in 1563, under Elizabeth I, five years after Mary's death

• It documented the persecutions in vivid, often graphic, detail

• It included eyewitness accounts, descriptions of the burnings and the last words of the martyrs

Purpose

• The book was explicitly Protestant propaganda

• It was designed to associate Catholicism with cruelty, tyranny and intolerance

  • It served the Elizabethan Protestant establishment's need to justify the religious settlement

• It also created the image of England as a Protestant nation, providentially saved from Catholic persecution

Influence

• In 1571, Foxe's Book of Martyrs was ordered to be placed in parish churches alongside the Bible

  • This gave it enormous reach across the whole country

• Latimer's dying words, recorded by Foxe, became one of the most famous quotations of the English Reformation

• The book created the lasting label "Bloody Mary" and embedded it in English Protestant consciousness

Limitations as a historical source

• Foxe was not a neutral observer

  • He was a committed Protestant writing to serve a Protestant agenda

  • He wrote five years after Mary's death, under a Protestant queen

  • His account emphasised London reactions, which were the strongest

    • Reactions elsewhere were milder

  • Historians since the 1980s have tried to reconstruct the popular Catholic experience without relying too heavily on Foxe

Intellectual Developments & Humanist Thought under Mary I

• The intellectual landscape of Mary's reign was more complex than simply a return to pre-Reformation Catholicism

  • Two opposing forces were at work

The two traditions in tension

Pole's intellectual programme

• Pole wanted to revive Catholic intellectual life in England, not just restore old practices

  • He patronised scholars and supported better education for the clergy

  • His approach was focusing on improving preaching, educating the clergy and guiding ordinary believers rather than relying on punishment

  • But his conflict with Pope Paul IV severely limited what he could achieve

Practical Catholic intellectual reform

• Bishop Bonner of London published A Profitable and Necessary Doctrine, a clear guide to Catholic faith for ordinary parishes

• New homilies (set sermons) were issued for clergy to read to congregations

• The aim was practical:

  • Give ordinary people clear Catholic teaching after a generation of confusion

Protestants in exile

• Many committed Protestants fled to Frankfurt, Geneva and Zurich during Mary's reign

  • Protestant exile communities formed and were deeply influenced by Calvinist ideas

  • John Knox and others brought radical Protestant thinking back to England and Scotland

• When Elizabeth came to the throne, the returning exiles pushed for a more thoroughly Protestant settlement than Elizabeth herself initially wanted

• The Marian exiles radicalised the Protestant movement and shaped the religious politics of Elizabeth's reign

• Their absence during Mary’s reign also removed many committed Protestants from political life, helping to explain why Parliament proved relatively compliant with the restoration of Catholicism

How Successful was Mary I's Attempt to Restore Catholicism?

• Use the evidence below to build your argument

• Consider what was achieved legislatively, practically and in terms of popular response

Evidence that the restoration was making progress

• The Acts of Repeal passed with little parliamentary opposition

  • This suggests Protestant roots among the political class were not as deep as the Edwardian legislation implied

• In some areas, there was evidence of a positive response

  • People began restoring Catholic practices even before Mary ordered them to

• Pole's reform programme was genuine

  • It addressed real weaknesses in the pre-Reformation Church: poorly trained clergy and inadequate pastoral care

• Beyond London, reactions to the burnings were limited

  • The idea that the whole country was horrified by them comes largely from Protestant propaganda

Evidence that the restoration faced serious problems

• Church lands were not restored

  • The economic foundation of the restored Church was permanently weakened

• The conflict between Pole and Paul IV undermined the reform programme at the highest level

• The burnings damaged Mary's reputation

  • Especially in London and gave propagandists powerful material

• Mary died after only five years

  • The reform programme never had the time to take root properly

• The Marian exiles returned under Elizabeth with more radical Protestant ideas than before

  • The exile had strengthened, not weakened, Protestantism

• The Elizabethan Settlement reversed Mary's work within a year of her death

  • The restoration had not gone deep enough to survive

Key historian