Mary Tudor - Anna Whitelock [131]
As the months went on, the persecution spread beyond Bonner’s diocese to Wales, East Anglia, and the North. In the diocese of Chester, George Marsh, a young widowed farmer from Cumberland, had been ordained as a priest during the reign of Edward VI. After Mary’s accession he returned from London to Lancashire, denounced the Mass and papal supremacy, and was subsequently arrested. He was condemned as a heretic and sentenced to be burned at Spittle Broughton, just outside the north gate of Chester, on April 24, 1555. Offered a pardon if he recanted, he refused, saying he loved life and wanted to live but not at the cost of betraying Christ. Having walked to the site of his execution in shackles, a chain was fastened around his waist. On his head was placed a jar filled with tar and pitch so that when the flames reached it the contents would pour down. It was a gusty day and a gradual death, as very slowly the flames engulfed his body.11
On the island of Guernsey, a woman named Katherine Cowchen lived with her two daughters, Perotine Massey and Guillemine Gilbert. Perotine had informed the authorities that a local woman, Vincent Gosset, had stolen a gold goblet. In revenge Gosset denounced Cowchen and her two daughters as heretics. All three were convicted of heresy and sentenced to death by burning. Perotine had not told the authorities she was pregnant. When the faggots were lit, the fire caused her to give birth to her baby son, who fell onto the burning faggots. One of the spectators rushed forward to save the baby and pulled him out of the fire, but the local sheriff ordered that the baby be thrown back. He was burned with his mother, grandmother, and aunt.12
NEITHER MARY NOR Pole had expected to burn so many; they wanted the heretics to be reconciled rather than die and for the burnings to be carried out judiciously and without vindictiveness. Mary ordered that a councillor be present to supervise each burning in London and that during each execution “some good and pious sermons be preached.” Writing in December 1554, she had declared:
Touching the punishment of heretics, I believe it would be well to inflict punishment at this beginning, without much cruelty and passion, but without however omitting to do such justice on those who choose by their false doctrines to deceive simple persons, that the people may clearly comprehend that they have not been condemned without just cause, whereby others will be brought to know the truth, and will beware of letting themselves be induced to relapse into such new and false opinions.13
However, willful disobedience to the Catholic Church—heresy—was the worst of sins and needed to be extirpated, lest it “infect” more.
But rather than extinguishing Protestant sentiment, as Mary intended, the burnings served only to define more clearly the Protestants as a dissident group. Moreover, the courage of the martyrs stirred the admiration of many of those who saw them die. Such was the “murmuring about the cruel enforcement of the recent acts of Parliament on heresy which had now begun, as shown publicly when Rogers was burnt,” reported Renard to Philip after the first London burnings, “I do not think it well that your Majesty should allow further executions to take place unless the reasons are overwhelmingly strong and the offences committed have been so scandalous as to render the course justifiable in the eyes of the people.”14 Four months later, Michieli made similar observations:
Two days ago, to the displeasure as usual of the population here, two Londoners were burnt alive, one of them having been a public lecturer in Scripture, a person sixty years of age, who was held in great esteem. In a few days the like will be done to four or five more; and thus from time to time to many others