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Fires of Faith: Catholic England under Mary Tudor

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The brief reign of Mary I has hitherto been regarded as an anomaly in the steady progress of England in the Whig mythology of British history. It's considered a throwback to the Middle Ages, a dark time of superstition and tyranny, illuminated only by the fires of Smithfield and Oxford. Eamon Duffy sets out to revise this view, dealing with at least five major misconceptions about Catholic England under Mary I:

1). Papal Legate and Archbishop of Canterbury Reginald Pole was not that involved with the restoration of Catholicism, he did not agree with the policy of burnings, and did not encourage preaching enough.

Often this is held because Pole refused the assistance of the Jesuits in England. As Duffy notes, Pole had a different program of renewal planned from the Jesuit program. John Foxe actually minimized Pole's culpability in the heresy trials, but Pole was ultimately in charge of them. As Legate and Archbishop, Duffy demonstrates, Pole certainly encouraged preaching, preaching himself or preparing sermons for publication.

2). Pole and Mary ignored opportunities for propaganda against protestants, especially missing out on preaching or controlling the situation at the burning of heretics.

Duffy answers this charge by emphasizing how the new regime took advantage of Northumberland's speech on the scaffold before his execution. The leader of the plot to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne admitted his errors in continuing the protestant reformation under Edward VI and repented, having reverted to Catholicism. Duffy also notes that Pole was very much concerned with guiding popular opinion at the burnings, with preachers there to admonish both the heretics and any in the crowd who might share their errors.

3). The campaign of burnings did not work; the crowds shared the protestant cause of the victims in part because of their revulsion against the cruelty of the judges and the executions.

The judges did all they could to avoid condemning most laymen and women to the stake. The regime had to deal with the leaders of protestantism directly, although Duffy absolutely regrets the execution of Cranmer, surely an act of revenge by Mary for the sufferings he caused her and her mother. John Foxe's Book of Martyrs is the culprit here; a biased and untrustworthy volume, it is usually accepted on face value. For instance, Duffy notes that Latimer never told Ridley to "play the man"--Foxe is paraphrasing Polycarp, martyr of the early Church.
Duffy contends that the campaign to extirpate the protestant heresy from England was working. It only ended because Mary and Pole died. Our 21st century moral standards aside (based on a marvelous record of genocide, world wars, communist and totalitarian tyranny, abortion, etc), Duffy reminds us that the purpose of history is to understand that other country, the past, not to impose our standards upon it. If the purpose of history is the latter, Elizabeth I should be called "Bloody Bess" because torture, hanging, drawing and quartering are not humane ways of dealing with recusancy and dissent either.

4). All the regime had was this negative campaign to impose Catholicism on the people.

Duffy here answers with a culmination of facts: the regime did mount a preaching campaign, a catechetical campaign, a publishing program, and a reforming plan. This judgment is usually based on the hindsight that the reign lasted only five years. But Duffy reminds us that Mary and Pole did not know that they only had five years! They lived life as we do, in the present, ignorant of the future. They had a plan; death and Elizabeth cut its accomplishment short.

5). The restoration of Catholicism under Mary I was out-of-date, ignoring Counter-Reformation guidance of the Council of Trent.

This is backwards, contends Duffy: The restoration of Catholicism in England under Mary I set Counter-Reformation standards of the Council of Trent. Pole's efforts were models for Charles Borromeo, the great reforming Cardinal Archbishop of Milan. Marian England set the standards of seminary training, bishops in residence, the catechism of the Council of Trent, the use of tabernacles in churches, etc.
Pole turned around the failure of the bishops under Henry VIII to uphold the unity of the Church and the primacy of the pope. Remember that only bishop, John Fisher, stood up against Henry's power grab. When Mary and Pole died and Elizabeth I succeeded, only one bishop submitted to her religious settlement. The rest declared their belief in transubstantiation, the Sacrifice of the Mass, the primacy of the pope and the unity of the Church--therefore they were removed from office and either went into exile or died in prison.

In summary: Mary and Reginald Pole left a legacy of brave men and women who remained true to their faith, setting up seminaries abroad and returning missionary priests to serve the recusant laity. The campaign against heresy was working in Marian England; the reform efforts of Pole and his bishops were following his plan of renewal. Duffy marshals documentary evidence and clear reasoning to establish their success and true legacy, contra the received opinion of Whiggish historians.

Duffy does not treat all aspects of Marian Catholicism, however. He does not address the material refurnishing of churches, the limited refoundation of monastic orders, or other administration type details. Well illustrated with excellent notes and bibliography: Highly recommended.

Eamon Duffy's "Fires of Faith: Catholic England Under Mary Tudor" is a very welcome addition to the ongoing reassessment of the English Reformation that he begain with his "The Stripping of the Altars". The subject is important because it sets the stage for any study of Christianity in the English speaking world. For Christians intersted in a real unity it is important to put to rest the polemics and myths embraced by competing communities and explore the possibility that the Reformation and Counter-Reformation deformed a common ancestor to both the Catholic and Protestant communities.

I am 74 years old and a cradle Roman Catholic. Growing up in passionately Protestant Shreveport, I wept when I read in high school my first book about Queen Mary Tudor, her husband King Philip II of Spain and their effort to win England, Ireland and Wales back to fealty to the Pope. I thought that they should have won for the Greater Glory of God. I am not a professional historian (my working career was in American diplomacy). But I think I am part of precisely the non-professional part of Eamon Duffy's readership he meant to pitch his book toward.

As the decades have rolled along I have read much in the religious history of England, Ireland and Scotland but did not return to Queen Mary's reign (1553 - 1558) until I read a review of Eamon Duffy's FIRES OF FAITH: CATHOLIC ENGLAND UNDER MARY TUDOR. I then bought the book, learned a few new facts, vastly enjoyed the book's 30 plates and six maps. At first glance, it seemed to have all the trappings of a good, solid, readable, reasonably popular history book useful to educated publics who are not specialized in Tudor times or the English Reformation. It had a "Select" Bibliography -- often a sign that the author is writing for non-specialists. The notes were ample but not overwhelming.

So I settled back for a good read. By book's end, however, I was greatly disappointed in FIRES OF FAITH: CATHOLIC ENGLAND UNDER MARY TUDOR. It was nothing like as readable as Duffy's earlier THE STRIPPING OF THE ALTARS (under Mary's father King Henry VIII). It was largely a polemic against other historians specialized in the history of the Reformation in England. To his credit, Cambridge University Professor Eamon Duffy was frank about his limited objectives.

-- (1) He was trying to dig beneath a huge mound solid as concrete: 400 and more years of historical misinterpretation and supercilious bad-mouthing of Queen Mary (1516 - 1558) and her right hand clergyman and Royal Plantagenet cousin Cardinal Archbishop Reginald Pole (1500 - 1558). He had to dispose of the classical, widely accepted misrepresentations before he could reassess the Marian lustrum in its own lights.

-- (2) That project, it seemed to me, meant that FIRES OF FAITH are a work distinctly preliminary to something yet to come and notably more readable. Duffy says as much: he is not writing a biography of Queen Mary or of Cardinal Pole. There are many aspects of Mary's reign he will not touch in any depth: restoration of the monasteries and such like. The book is focused. Its theme is an aspect or two of the re-Catholicization of England, how well it was planned and executed and how it might have succeeded but for the Queen's dying at a relatively young age.

Within those limitations Duffy might have written a more readable book except for one unavoidable hurdle: the execution by burning of more than 280 Englishmen and Englishwomen whose consciences did not allow them to profess Mary's and Pole's Roman Catholicism. Modern readers are not likely to see much good in Mary's reign were an author to sweep those executions under a rug. And Duffy does not. Page after page he recounts the hunts for heretics, the trials, the efforts to persuade dissidents to come back to Roman and Royal obedience and the final moments of the Protestant martyrs. A dozen of those anti-Protestant processes and executions are shown in color.

Duffy can never get away from those burnings. Their honest narrative takes up a sizeable portion of his text. He tries to show religious persecutions and executions for heresy as not uncommon in other countries at the same time -- though the methods of killing varied. Duffy also argues that the Marian regime and Cardinal Pole were sensitive to the need to justify the persecutions for conscience both to the English people at large and to fellow Europeans. The executions were drawn heavily from the Protestant south and midlands and did not touch large, more religiously conservative parts of England.

During executions the appointed preachers made a point of stressing the anarchical character of the faith professions of those to be executed. If a dozen were about to die, there might be ten contradictory interpretations of sacraments or rites among them. Your Protestant, logically, was each man a church or a religion unto himself, the preachers argued.

The official apologetics of the Marian years also stressed that Catholic England had been created and sustained by Bishops of Rome dead and gone for many centuries. To cast off the Pope was, therefore, to tear out England's heart and to disrespect one's Catholic parents, grandparents and forebears. Much of that argument stuck. Where only one bishop, Saint John Fisher, had remained papist when Henry VIII declared himself Supreme Head of the Church of England, by striking contrast, only one bishop, Anthony Kitchin of Llandaff, did NOT stay papist when Mary's successor, her half sister Elizabeth Tudor, peacefully ascended the throne in November 1558. In a rare outburst of color, author Duffy described Bishop Kitchin as "one classic timeserver who would doubtless have become a Hindu if required, provided he was allowed to hold on to the See of Llandaff" (Ch.1, p. 23).

Duffy argues that the way Mary and Pole returned, if only briefly, England, Ireland and Wales to official unity with Papal Rome was much studied, admired and copied on the European continent. This is especially true of Pole's insistence on a well educated, pastorally inclined clergy, formally educated in seminaries and universities.

This book, as written, cries out for an executive summary. It is not likely to be widely read outside narrow scholarly circles. And even there it may be wrongly discounted because historians simply despise "Bloody Mary" Tudor as a Hitler before Hitler. Duffy's book is not a failure, but it might have been better edited. I rate it 3.5 stars, rounding upward to four * * * *. -OOO-

Mary I can be considered England's first undisputed female sovereign. In her five years as Queen (1553-1558), Mary repealed Edward VI's religious laws, re-established Catholicism, and burned 283 (or 284) Protestant martyrs, earning herself the name `Bloody Mary'. Her reign is often seem simply as a cruel and ultimately futile attempt to return England to Catholicism (for which an heir was required) or, at least, to arrest England's progress towards becoming a Protestant nation (which was inevitable once her half-sister Elizabeth was definitely her only heir). But is this a fair assessment of Mary I's reign?

In this book, Eamon Duffy, Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Cambridge, argues that the management of the return to Catholicism was not ineptly handled. Instead, Professor Duffy puts forward a case that the process (largely driven by Reginald Pole, Cardinal and the last Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury) was well planned, and the arrangements put in place were both sensible and practical. Unfortunately, for Mary I's place in history, five years was not sufficient time to bed down these reforms and the pall cast by the burnings overshadows the fact that the Protestantism installed during Edward VI's reign was opportunistic, confused and destructive. The widely held view of Mary is also a consequence of the ultimate victory of Protestantism in England: history is written by the victors.

But looking beyond the fact of the Reformation to the possible causes of it (did the Roman Catholic Church need reforming, or did Henry VIII break with Rome simply to marry Anne Boleyn?) introduces some different possibilities for looking at Mary I's reign. Cardinal Pole was very much involved in the Roman Catholic Church's response to the theological and ethical issues posed by the Reformation, and was arguably well placed to lead a program of Roman Catholic restoration in England. And perhaps, given more time, such a campaign would have been successful.

I found this an interesting book, but it has left me with more questions than answers. I can accept that Mary I was motivated by her own beliefs and values and that, had she lived longer or had a Roman Catholic heir, her reign would undoubtedly be viewed differently. Reading this book is a reminder that historical fact and modern sensibilities are not always compatible. Professor Duffy's book has made me curious: I don't have a more favourable view of Mary I as a consequence, but I'm keen to read some other accounts of her reign.

'No 16th-century European state could easily imagine the peaceful existence of differing religious confessions.'

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

This history of the Catholic Counter-Reformation in England gets short thrift. Modern prejudice mingles with 400 years of historical bias and nationalism to conjure up an opposite view: that Catholicism was a dead religion, that Anglicanism restored its glory without its superstition, and that England was mercifully spared the Wars of Religion pitting the backwards Catholic legions against the bloody-yet-enlightened Protestant resistance of the 17th century.

Modern scholarship fused with modern secularism has allowed for a more clear lens. Duffy's exemplary efforts to shine a brighter light on just precisely what Tudor England was dealing with -- and how Mary Tudor and Reginald Pole truly were -- offers a great deal more insight in to the reign of Elizabeth and the primordial nation-state that Elizabeth helped to forge.

For those who have seen Showtime's "The Tudors" and are looking for the next chapter (without the sexualism) or for those looking for a good one-volume overview of the post Henry VIII period, this book is an indispensable introduction into a period little studied and hardly understood by all but the most fanatic of royalists or historians of the period.

I read Duffy's excellent book: The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400-1580 and found it a feast of Reformation History that heretofore was untold and somewhat obscure. This book, Fires of Faith, is more of a Roman Catholic apologetic for intolerance and incompetence wreaked by Mary Tudor's regime, precisely that aspect of her reign that is quite indefensible. Duffy tries to highlight positive attributes of the regime, but is unconvincing at every turn. The grotesque burnings are defended as part of the times and we are asked to consider this as part of a zero sum game between 16th Century Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. Maybe so, but this still leaves naked the inanity of the regime; Duffy admits as much in acknowledging that the burnings and circus-like show trials were counter-productive. I should say so. Although alluded to, Mary's morose psychological need for settling scores by acting in a self-destructive manner is never discussed at length. This is important given the evidence of her severely depressed and delusional state. Likewise Duffy ignores the larger historical context, including Mary's extremely unpopular marriage to Philip II (who left the squalid scene posthaste for Spain, never intending to return), the loss of Calais, and Mary's (ironic) fights with Pope Paul IV over his anti-Habsburg policies.

At the end of the book, I felt an amazing sense of relief that Elizabeth I came on the scene and established the Via Media. Her dislike of Mary's religious policies was well known by the public and it was expected that a change would occur when she became Queen. They were correct. Upon her accession, heresy laws were instantaneously repealed and the the burnings ceased. During Mary's reign one could be reported to the authorities for not fingering Rosary beads. The great English Church composer, Thomas Tallis, was a Catholic and a Gentleman of Elizabeth's Chapel Royal, until his death. In 1575 Queen Elizabeth granted Tallis and William Byrd (Tallis's pupil and also a Catholic) a monopoly in England on printing music. After reading Duffy's book, the prospect of finding a comparable example of such intelligent and open thinking during Mary's reign is grimly ludicrous.

The de-legitimzing of non-catholic faith and will to sweep under the rug the real history of that community is annoying at best. Against a backdrop of current politics--- the Jesuits inciting their Latin people, the ex-slaves of Spain with "liberation theology" and its peculiar anti-protestant/anti-american/ message, as well as catholic insistence on the Hart-Celler act, to open border to the catholic-incited peoples, makes such "spiin" as one of their newscaster's puts it, somewhat questionable. This is not the time for this sort of work. BUt rather, for catholics to confront the DISASTER Vatican II had for another protestant country, and from which they always continue to feed, even as they condemn the very source of their abundance as heretical. (that they have never been able to be blessed with, not really, unless extortion in taxes in their countries is a "blessing of god"). Catholic chutzpah! Hasbara! Spin indeed! A no-go on this one.

No amount of re-interpretation can make Mary Tudor into anything less than the mass murderer she was. The facts are simply NOT there. Of course, there were angry Catholic prelates who were egging her on at every turn, but at every point in her life,she chose to take the self centered advice of people like King Phillip II, Emperor Charles, Cardinals Pole, Bonner, & Gardiner and her Spanish relatives. Mary, with undeviating fury followed the plan that she'd had in place ever since her mother had been put away by Henry VIII, which was to do anything necessary, to KILL anything or anyone to get England back into the fold of the Papacy, another copy of her ideal state "Imperial Spain" where the evening air always smelled of burning flesh and the honest could not sleep for fear of the knock of the inquisition. She was an extremely unhappy woman, and she richly earned every moment of the pain she suffered.
Ironically, even other bloody handed murderers like Phillip saw how she was alienating her people and interceded with her to at least slow, if not stop, her maniacal killing, but she would not. Given the reams of evidence, if one were to wish to rehabilitate such a character at this late date, the best way would be to say that she was born syphilitic and that she was mad. Religious mania was often a side effect of syphilis as was often seen in the Royal Houses of Europe, especially in Catholic Spain.

Its difficult to put into words the evil of this book. That evil starts with a title that is a thiny veiled allusion to burning human beings alive based on dissenting from the Roman Catholic Church. Eamon Duffy in the book wants desperatly for the reader to understand the greatness of England under Mary I which has been hidden by the evil protestant conspiracy. The message here is that rather than seeing Mary's repressions and burnings as a step backward, they should be seen as a step forward in restoring the natural Catholic order of things to England.

Duffy's argument is in essence that Mary's tyranny and religious persecution was well-organized, highly effective and only held back from success by the untimely death of Queen Mary. Its a rather novel view. I cannot remember many other examples where the effectiveness of a tyranny was used as an argument for its morality. In some ways, its an argument by distraction. This is history written by the killers where the victims are reduced to ciphers. They just don't count.

The book is at its most reprehensible in terms of trying to rehabilitate burning men and women at the stake. The poor judges were doing everything they could to help and everyone felt very sorry that the filthy protestants chose to die for their beliefs. Duffy is sorry for everyone except those who actually suffered as the victims of the policy. He somehow really believes that the machinary of the state is where people's real sympathy should lie.

And then there is the matter of all Protestants being liars. Anything they wrote themselves is a wicked batch of anti-Catholic lies. Therefore the history of those who were the victims is to be dismissed in favor of good Catholic authors who always tell the truth. Those who would his narrow religious view are as much as called out as Whigs in the book itself.

One of the more interesting bits in the book is Duffy's attempt to make broader events of the counter-reformation in Europe somehow a product of Mary's England. Its a chest-thumping English nationalist argument that doesn't really hold up. Its an argument that depends on looking at what Bishops did at Elizabeth's accession in isolation and beliving that they made their choices on religious conviction. But a look at the Bishops careers shows many who had very flexable opinions and that their decisions may have been more a comment on their faith in the Elizabeth's endurance in the throne rather than religious faith.

Duffy avoids any question of morality in his arguments by saying that is simply wrong to draw any moral conclusions about the policy of a historical regime based on modern standards. The standard he is rather ironically applying is the Pagan pre-Christian notion of morality. It is a morality of the end the leader wills and the effectiveness of the leader in reaching that end. Its a morality that says that whats in the Bible is fine for the drones, but not for leaders.

The thing to note about this book is that historical truth is never to be found in a narrow partisan account. And that a historian who wants to challange what is considered a dominant point of view is obliged to create something eise than the polar opposite of that dominant point of view sharing all of its faults.

In short what is presented in this book is a reactionary, stupid, one-sided, bigoted Roman Catholic defense of the inquisition in England under Queen Mary. Put on the shelf next to the reactionary defenses of the broader inquisition, the Crusades and so on.
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