The reign of Queen Mary is popularly remembered largely for her re-introduction of Catholicism into England, and especially for the persecution of Protestants, memorably described in John Foxe's Acts and Monuments. Mary's brief reign has often been treated as an aberrant interruption of England's march to triumphant Protestantism, a period of political sterility, foreign influence and religious repression rightly eclipsed by the happier reign of her more sympathetic half-sister, Elizabeth. In pursuit of a more balanced assessment of Mary's religious policies, this volume explores the theology, pastoral practice and ecclesiastical administration of the Church in England during her reign. Focusing on the neglected Catholic renaissance which she ushered in, the book traces its influences and emphases, its methods and its rationales - together the role of Philip's Spanish clergy and native English Catholics - in relation to the wider influence of the continental Counter Reformation and Mary's humanist learning. Measuring these issues against the reintroduction of papal authority into England, and the balance between persuasion and coercion used by the authorities to restore Catholic worship, the volume offers a more nuanced and balanced view of Mary's religious policies. Addressing such intriguing and under-researched matters from a variety of literary, political and theological perspectives, the essays in this volume cast new light, not only on Marian Catholicism, but also on the wider European religious picture.

The reign of Queen Mary is popularly remembered largely for her re-introduction of Catholicism into England, and especially for the persecution of Protestants, memorably described in John Foxe's Acts and Monuments. Mary's brief reign has often been treated as an aberrant interruption of England's march to triumphant Protestantism, a period of political sterility, foreign influence and religious repression rightly eclipsed by the happier reign of her more sympathetic half-sister, Elizabeth. In pursuit of a more balanced assessment of Mary's religious policies, this volume explores the theology, pastoral practice and ecclesiastical administration of the Church in England during her reign. Focusing on the neglected Catholic renaissance which she ushered in, the book traces its influences and emphases, its methods and its rationales - together the role of Philip's Spanish clergy and native English Catholics - in relation to the wider influence of the continental Counter Reformation and Mary's humanist learning. Measuring these issues against the reintroduction of papal authority into England, and the balance between persuasion and coercion used by the authorities to restore Catholic worship, the volume offers a more nuanced and balanced view of Mary's religious policies. Addressing such intriguing and under-researched matters from a variety of literary, political and theological perspectives, the essays in this volume cast new light, not only on Marian Catholicism, but also on the wider European religious picture.

Mary Tudor is often written off as a hopeless, twisted queen who tried desperately to pull England back to the Catholic Church that was so dear to her mother, and sent many to burn at the stake in the process. In this radical re-evaluation of the first 'real' English queen regnant, Judith M. Richards challenges her reputation as 'Bloody Mary' of popular historical infamy, contending that she was closer to the more innovative, humanist side of the Catholic Church. Richards argues persuasively that Mary, neither boring nor basically bloody, was a much more hard-working, 'hands on', and decisive queen than is commonly recognized. Had she not died in her early forties and failed to establish a Catholic succession, the course of history could have been very different, England might have remained Catholic and Mary herself may even have been treated more kindly by history. This illustrated and accessible biography is essential reading for all those with an interest in one of England's most misrepresented monarchs.

Daughter of Henry VIII, half-sister to the future Elizabeth I, the turbulent life of the first woman to rule England and the cruel fate of those who opposed her iron will.

The reign of Mary Tudor has been remembered as an era of sterile repression, when a reactionary monarch launched a doomed attempt to reimpose Catholicism on an unwilling nation. Above all, the burning alive of more than 280 men and women for their religious beliefs seared the rule of “Bloody Mary' into the protestant imagination as an alien aberration in the onward and upward march of the English-speaking peoples. In this controversial reassessment, the renowned reformation historian Eamon Duffy argues that Mary's regime was neither inept nor backward looking. Led by the queen's cousin, Cardinal Reginald Pole, Mary's church dramatically reversed the religious revolution imposed under the child king Edward VI. Inspired by the values of the European Counter-Reformation, the cardinal and the queen reinstated the papacy and launched an effective propaganda campaign through pulpit and press. Even the most notorious aspect of the regime, the burnings, proved devastatingly effective. Only the death of the childless queen and her cardinal on the same day in November 1558 brought the protestant Elizabeth to the throne, thereby changing the course of English history.

Few areas of early modern English history have roused such passions and interpretations as the rule of Mary Tudor and her efforts to return the country to Catholicism following the reigns of her father and brother. In this book, Dr Wizeman explores Catholic theology and spirituality according to the religious literature printed during the reign of Mary Tudor (1553-1558). As part of the strategy to renew Catholic religion in England after the reformations under Henry VIII and Edward VI, Marian theologians, authors and editors produced numerous works of catechesis, religious polemic, devotion and sermons. These writings demonstrate that the Catholicism of Marian England was not a mere insular reaction to the preceding decades of religious change, nor a via media polity which eschewed important elements of traditional religion while embracing tenets of the Reformation. Rather the theology and spirituality of Mary Tudor's church, as well as many of its strategies for religious renewal, was intimately connected to - and in fact anticipated or paralleled - the theology, spirituality and strategies for reform embraced by Counter-Reformation Catholicism, especially after the promulgation of the decrees of the Council of Trent (1545-1563). After considering the recent historiography of Mary Tudor's reign, the book contextualises these writings through a brief history of the Marian church and a discussion of the authors and dedicatees. It then presents an analysis of the Marian writers' and theologians' views on revelation, christology, soteriology, ecclesiology, sacramental theology, piety and eschatology. Finally, the study compares the Catholic belief asserted in these works to that found in texts by English theologians printed before 1553, especially John Fisher, and by contemporary theologians in Europe, particularly Bartolomé Carranza, as well as the Tridentine catechism, and the decrees and official texts of the English Reformation.