Mary I (18 February 1516 – 17 November 1558), also known as Mary Tudor, and as “Bloody Mary” by her Protestant opponents, was Queen of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death in 1558. She is best known for her vigorous attempt to reverse the English Reformation, which had begun during the reign of her father, Henry VIII. Her attempt to restore to the church the property confiscated in the previous two reigns was largely thwarted by parliament, but during her five-year reign, Mary had over 280 religious dissenters burned at the stake in the Marian persecutions.
Throughout the history of the world, heretics and religious fanatics alike have maintained a biting hold upon the ignorant popular mind and the self-interested political authority of those at the top.
“The cruelties of Mary’s reign, cruelties which even in the most accurate and sober narrative excite just detestation, and which were neither accurately nor soberly related in the popular martyrologies, the conspiracies against Elizabeth, and above all the Gunpowder Plot, had left in the minds of the vulgar a deep and bitter feeling which was kept up by annual commemorations, prayers, bonfires, and processions. It should be added that those classes which were peculiarly distinguished by attachment to the throne, the clergy and the landed gentry, had peculiar reasons for regarding the Church of Rome with aversion. The clergy trembled for their benefices; the landed gentry for their abbeys and great tithes.”
Excerpt From: Thomas Babington Macaulay Macaulay. “The History of England, from the Accession of James II — Volume 1.”
The unlikely conjunction of these two unflattering schemes for bigots and mercenaries – while affording limitless entertainment – does nothing to advance either democracy or socialism. In the Western world this putative gusto for spiritual and economic fervour is merely the alliance of control which is but another word for power. The furthest topic from consideration by either member of the cabal is truth or altruism, the very ingredients of their voices.