Mary Tudor: Obstacles Of The Restoration Of Catholicism In England

History has not been kind to Mary Tudor. Compared to what followed, her reign seems like a brief but misguided attempt to hold back England's inevitable transformation to Protestantism. Compared to what came before, her regime looks like the regressive episode of a hysterical woman. Considered on its own terms, however, the regime appears much more complex, leading contributors to this volume of essays to reach far different conclusions about her reign: reestablishing traditional religion in England was an enormous undertaking that required rebuilding the Marian Church from the bottom up. Moreover, given more time it might have succeeded. Finally, as these essays continually remind us, concepts differentiating Catholicism from Protestantism
Next, Claire Cross discusses Marian efforts to enact Catholic reforms in those strongholds of Protestant dissent, the English universities. The queen's decision to restore a community of monks at Westminster is the subject of a study by C. S. Knighton, who includes a detailed appendix identifying members of this community. In the section's last essay, Ralph Houlbrooke argues that swift acquiescence by one of Norwich's leading evangelical ministers, and the diligence of clergy and Church courts in upholding the Marian restoration, helped Norwich avoid large-scale
Thomas F. Mayer begins with an analysis of various court documents, and concludes that even though Paul IV had apparently revoked Pole's legatine office, the matter remained unsettled, and Pole probably continued to function in that capacity until the end of Mary's reign. In the following chapter, Pole's 1557 St. Andrew's Day sermon provides evidence for Eamon Duffy's defense of the cardinal's record — not only as an outspoken advocate for the importance of preaching, but also as a hard-nosed realist confronting an entire population of apostatized Londoners. In the final essay of this section, John Edwards reveals that, unlike English documents, records from the Spanish and Roman Inquisitions indicate greater Spanish involvement in the restoration of English Catholicism than has been previously