From that time Mary, who was left to rule alone, directed all her efforts to the restoration of the Catholic Church.  Hallam says her policy was acceptable to a large part of the nation.[2] On the other hand, the leaders in Scotland bound themselves by a solemn Covenant (1557) to crush out all attempts to reestablish the Catholic faith.  Through her influence Parliament repealed the legislation of Henry VIII’s and Edward VI’s reigns, in so far as it gave support to Protestantism.  She revived the persecuting statutes against heretics (S283).  The old relations with the Pope were resumed but the monastic lands were left in the hands of their new owners (S352).  To accomplish her object in supporting her religion, the Queen resorted to the arguments of the dungeon, the rack, and the fagot, and when Bishops Bonner and Gardiner slackened their work of persecution and death, Mary, half crazed by Philip’s desertion, urged them not to stay their hands.

[2] See A. H. Hallam’s “Constitutional History of England,” and compare J. Lingard’s excellent “History of England,” to the same effect.

371.  Devices for reading the Bible.

The penalty for reading the English Scriptures, or for offering Protestant prayers, was death.  In his autobiography, Benjamin Franklin says that one of his ancestors, who lived in England in Mary’s reign, adopted the following expedient for giving his family religious instruction.  He fastened an open Bible with strips of tape on the under side of a stool.  When he wished to read it aloud he placed the stool upside down on his knees, and turned the pages under the tape as he read them.  One of the children stood watching at the door to give the alarm if any one approached; in that case, the stool was set quickly on its feet again on the floor, so that nothing could be seen.

372.  Religious Toleration unknown in Mary’s Age.

Mary would doubtless have bravely endured for her faith the full measure of suffering which she inflicted.  Her state of mind was that of all who then held strong convictions.  Each party believed it a duty to convert or exterminate the other, and the alternative offered to the heretic was to “turn or burn.”

Sir Thomas More, who gave his life as a sacrifice to conscience in Henry’s reign (S351), was eager to put Tyndale to the torture for translating the Bible.  Cranmer (S362), who perished at Oxford (1556), had been zealous in sending to the flames those who differed from him.  Even Latimer (S361), who died bravely at the stake, exhorting his companion Ridley (1555) “to be of good cheer and play the man, since they would light such a candle in England that day as in God’s grace should not be put out,” had abetted the kindling of slow fires under men as honest and determined as himself but on the opposite side.

In like spirit Queen Mary kept Smithfield, London, ablaze with martyrs, whose blood was the seed of Protestantism.  Yet persecution under Mary never reached the proportions that it did on the Continent.  At the most, but a few hundred died in England for the sake of their religion, while Mary’s husband, Philip II, during the last of his reign, covered Holland with the graves of Protestants, who had been tortured and put to cruel deaths, or buried alive, by tens of thousands.