'Bloody ' Mary and ' Good ' Queen Bess.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 16, 17 April 1902, Page 2

'Bloody ' Mary and ' Good ' Queen Bess.

' Give a dog a bad name and you may hang him' says Ac proverb, and there are few characters in hiLry whose stfJT* ha VT' Ved SUCh. a n 6ep a 'ld lasting stain from the st gma of a bad name as the English Queen Mary. Branded after her death with the epithet ' Bloody' by partisan hisS;- cn Tr ehaS b6en handed downlFrom generation to generator, and from one writer to another, no one thinking it £r alL neC r, 6SSary tO, examine and Squire for himself as to how far the odious soubriquet was deserved. Nowadays, however, history is being largely re-written ; a careful sifting process is bfjng applied to many of the hitherto most widelyaccepted facts and historians mstead of being content to merely copy the statements of their predecessors go direct to the best docu mentary sources in order to arrive at the truth. The result in the present instance, of modern historical research is to demon* strate how entirely unjust and false is the contrast which has so often been drawn between 'Bloody Mary' and oSsifrM 658 ' The simple truth is, as a recent writer IT k\£ ai 7 WaS at least as g°od as Elizabeth, and Elizabeth was at , tas blood ag M > doubtedly persecuted under the influence of the intolerant spirit of the t.me,the only difference being that Mary perse cuted Protestants and Elizabeth persecuted Catholics °Ma^ persecution lasted only four years; Elizabeth's extended over forty-four According to Miss Strickland-a recent authority —the victims of Mary's persecution numbered • above two S, r/ur aCC°rdin? to Lin £ ard > Almost two hundred.' I he Catholic victims under Elizabeth amounted, according to HinT 1 (U( U u drft and four 'and Cma "y others,' fays Hallam, died of hardship in prison.'

# Concerning the general character of Elizabeth's persecution, j. K. Green, an eminent historian and himself a Protestant clergyman, has the following:—' To modern eyes there is even something more revolting than open persecution in a policy which branded every Catholic priest as a traitor and all Catholic worship as disloyal If we ado pt the Catholic estimate of the times, the twenty years which followed Lisbo-ioooJ saw the execution of two hundred oriests while a yet greater number perished in filthy and fever-stricken gaols in which they were plunged. The work of reconciliation with Rome was arrested by this ruthless energy.' This is how a competent Protestant writer describes the work of Elizabeth and it shows precisely how much claim she has to be celebrated as 'good Queen Bess.' As to Mary's personal character and her personal share in the persecution which took place during her reign, the matter has been carefully dealt with in a new history just published, compiled at first hand from contemporary documents by Al.ss J. M. Stone, and this is what the writer says in her summary of Mary's character :—' Apart from all misrepresentation, exaggeration, distorted evidence, and positive fiction, there remains the fact that a considerable number of persons did perish at the stake in Mary's name • • • • Mary did but sanction that which was not only the common practice throughout Christendom, but which had been the law of England more than 150 years, and which continued in force for upwards of a century after her. We must admit that Mary, and those whose business "it was to carry out the law, far from entertaining feelings of vengeance, provided every possible loophole of escape for those under examination. Moreover, the accused, even on the showing of box instead of being the meek and lamblike martyrs we have been led to consider them, persistently flouted their judges and treated them with flippant insolence and contempt ' That is the last word of history as to the character of Mary and it is a complete vindication from the reproach of personal' cruelty and bloodthirstiness with which her name and memory have so ong been associated. The historian of the future will depict her character in a very different setting from that of 'Bloody'