Religious Events
The Marian Persecutions
Persecution
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The burning of Protestants for heresy under Queen Mary I of England between 1553 and 1558, following her restoration of Roman Catholicism as the state religion and her revival of the medieval heresy laws. John Foxe's Actes and Monuments, first published in 1563 and known popularly as the Book of Martyrs, is the primary record of the executions and shaped English Protestant memory of the reign for centuries afterward; because Foxe wrote as a committed Protestant polemicist, historians read his accounts of individual martyrdoms alongside other surviving records rather than at face value, while treating the broad scale of the burnings as well established.
Facts
The Event
When It HappenedSourced to the subject's own account1553 to 1558, the reign of Mary I 1 PeriodSourced to the subject's own account Where It HappenedSourced to the subject's own account Victim GroupSourced to the subject's own accountProtestant clergy and laity across England who refused to recant their faith under the restored Catholic state religion of Mary I's reign, tried and burned under the revived medieval heresy laws. 1 Perpetrator RegimeSourced to the subject's own accountThe English Crown under Queen Mary I, which restored Roman Catholicism as the state religion and revived the medieval heresy laws used to try and execute Protestants who refused to recant. 1 Disputed
Death TollSourced to the subject's own accountThe widely cited figure of 284 burned draws from John Foxe's near-contemporary martyrology, cross-checked by later historians as broadly reliable for the scale of the burnings, even where individual accounts carry his own Protestant polemical framing. Death TollSourced to the subject's own accountSee death-toll-min. Some accounts round the toll to approximately 300, reflecting uncertainty over additional deaths in prison awaiting execution and incomplete regional records outside Foxe's own documentation. Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Roman Catholicism directly: "and 1558, following her restoration of Roman Catholicism as the state religion and her revival of the medieval heresy laws."
Related To
The reverse direction of the same broader Tudor religious conflict: the Marian Persecutions record Mary I burning Protestants for heresy 1553 to 1558; this entity records the Elizabethan penal laws that put Catholics to death a generation later.
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