Why Queen Mary I of England slaughtered hundreds for their religious beliefs

As Edward VI lay dying in 1553, the English crown teetered between Protestant factions and different family claims.

In his final act, Edward tried to exclude his Catholic half-sister Mary from the succession, favouring the Protestant Lady Jane Grey.

Mary, the daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, refused to accept the plan.

She gathered supporters in East Anglia, particularly at Framlingham Castle, and remained there while political pressure mounted in London.

The Privy Council initially supported Lady Jane Grey. However, when they sensed the strength of Mary's backing and noticed public unrest, they eventually declared Mary the rightful queen before she entered the capital in triumph. 

Her early life had taught her the brutal consequences of religious and family conflict.

After Henry VIII’s divorce from Catherine, Mary lost her royal status, lived under constant suspicion, and endured years of shame under Anne Boleyn’s influence.

However, she remained a devout Catholic throughout. Her legitimacy, and her faith, had both been questioned for most of her life.

When she finally became queen at the age of 37, Mary believed that her authority came from God.

She saw her Catholic beliefs as a sacred truth that England had to return to at all costs. 

Religious belief in the 16th century did not operate as a private choice or abstract philosophy.

Instead, it acted as a strict rule over every part of life, from politics and education to morality and law.

Since the early 1500s, the Protestant Reformation had shattered the unity of Western Christianity.

Protestant movements in Germany, Switzerland, and Scandinavia had challenged papal authority, while Catholic monarchs reacted by using state power to enforce religious agreement. 

In England, the break from Rome under Henry VIII had caused an unsettled shift.

The country still practised many Catholic traditions under the surface, but royal policy shifted repeatedly under his successors.

Under Edward VI, Protestant reformers had rewritten doctrine, removed icons, and introduced English-language services.

At a time when people believed that salvation depended on correct religious practice, these changes caused fear and outrage.

Religious policy had become a way to show political loyalty, and anyone who opposed the dominant doctrine faced charges of heresy or treason. 

When she had been queen for only a few months, Mary acted to reverse the Protestant reforms.

She ordered the repeal of Edward VI’s religious legislation, restored the Latin Mass, and brought back clerical celibacy and Catholic rituals.

She removed married Protestant clergy from their posts and encouraged bishops loyal to Rome to take their place.

In 1554, she married Philip, the Catholic son of Emperor Charles V and heir to the Spanish throne, in an attempt to strengthen her cause with a powerful Catholic ally, and hopefully produce a Catholic heir.

Philip became become King of Spain in 1556. 

Parliament, under Mary’s pressure, brought back the heresy laws that had first allowed executions for religious dissent in the early 15th century.

These De heretico combuendo statutes were originally enacted under Henry IV in 1401 and had been repealed under Edward VI, but now returned in full force.

In 1555, she began enforcing them again. Protestants who refused to take back their beliefs were charged with heresy and sentenced to death.

Mary believed that such punishment would save souls from eternal damnation.

She also saw Protestant dissent as a political threat, since it challenged both the authority of the Catholic Church and the legitimacy of her government.

To her, religious uniformity guaranteed national stability. 

Mary ordered the executions because she believed that tolerance would encourage rebellion.

Her short reign faced serious threats, including the Wyatt Rebellion in 1554, which opposed her marriage to Philip and the return of Catholicism.

After she put down the revolt, Mary saw leniency as weakness. She viewed her opponents as both heretics and traitors. 

The heresy laws allowed her to pursue Protestants who held positions of influence or who had become symbols of defiance under Edward VI.

Public burnings served a dual purpose: They aimed to terrify others into conformity and also demonstrated that the state would defend Catholic orthodoxy without compromise.

Mary hoped that dramatic punishments would force Protestants to recant or flee, restoring Catholic control over England’s religious life. 

The Marian Persecutions claimed the lives of around 280 people between 1555 and 1558.

Many of the executions took place in public squares, most famously in Smithfield and Oxford.

The victims included both ordinary people and clergy, men and women, and ranged from common artisans to senior religious leaders. 

Among the most well-known were the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, and bishops Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley.

Latimer and Ridley were burned at the stake together in Oxford on 16 October 1555.

According to later accounts, Latimer encouraged Ridley by saying, “We shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.”

Cranmer, who had authored the Book of Common Prayer and had long influenced English Protestantism, recanted under pressure, but later withdrew his confession.

In March 1556, he was burned alive when he thrust his hand into the flames and declared it unworthy for signing his earlier denial. 

Other victims included ordinary men and women who refused to attend Catholic Mass or who owned Protestant literature.

Many came from towns such as Colchester, Lewes, and Canterbury, where strong Protestant communities had developed. 

The persecution campaign ended when Mary died on 17 November 1558. Her health had declined sharply after a series of false pregnancies and constant stress.

With no heir, the crown passed to her half-sister Elizabeth, who restored Protestantism.

Public enthusiasm for Mary’s religious policy had already begun to wane before her death.

The executions had failed to destroy Protestant ideas and instead created martyrs whose stories circulated widely in pamphlets and sermons. 

The 1559 Parliament under Elizabeth formally repealed Marian heresy laws through the Act of Supremacy and related legislation as part of the Elizabethan Religious Settlement.

A variation of the 1552 Book of Common Prayer was also reintroduced.

Although the term "Anglicanism" came later, this settlement laid its foundations.

Her laws tolerated some private Catholic practice in exchange for loyalty to the crown.

Mary’s failure had taught her successors the political cost of open persecution. 

The nickname ‘Bloody Mary’ became popular decades after her death, driven in large part by Protestant writers during Elizabeth’s reign.

The most influential was John Foxe, whose Acts and Monuments, first published in 1563 and commonly called Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, documented the stories of those burned under Mary.

The vivid accounts highlighted both suffering and bravery, and they exposed injustice in ways that influenced public memory.

For English Protestants, Mary became a symbol of Catholic cruelty and religious tyranny. 

By the seventeenth century, her name had become inseparable from the idea of religious violence.

The phrase ‘Bloody Mary’ appeared frequently in popular literature and Protestant propaganda.

Later historians adjusted many details of her reign and explained the circumstances and limits she faced.

However, the legacy of public burnings and the scale of the repression left a permanent stain.

The executions between 1555 and 1558 influenced her historical reputation more than any other decision she made.