"Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary."
She's held responsible for the burning of nearly 300 protestants, granting her the infamous title little girls chant today in dark mirrors. But do you know her true story? The story of how her father bastardi...
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(Cardinal Reginald Pole, mastermind behind the Marian Counter Reformation)
While Dickens attacks Mary's propaganda as being 'unimpressive,' in reality, the propaganda was so oppressive that people complained about it. For example, Duffy points out that a Protestant exile named John Olde complained heavily in 1555 of the overflow of Marian propaganda being shared through sermons and the printing press. [65] Another example of propaganda before Cardinal Pole even arrived was the spread of John Dudley's confession after he was executed for attempting to keep Mary from getting her hands on the throne. According to Duffy, Dudley's confession had spread to places throughout Europe in a matter of days, and was even translated to multiple languages ranging from French and Spanish to Latin and Italian. [66] Dudley's confession, along with his call for Protestants to return to the Catholic faith, cumulated with Pole's Propaganda which "led scores of prominent evangelicals to abandon their reformed opinions, seeing in [Mary's] triumph the direct hand of God." [67]
Furthermore, when Pole arrived on the scene, he changed the nature of Marian propaganda. Before he had arrived, almost all propaganda was targeting the enactments made under Edward VI, rather than attacking the man who started the entire downward spiral—King Henry VIII. The shift in attack ads from Edward to Henry was initiated primarily by Cardinal Pole. The message now was that Edward was also a victim of the tyranny of Henry, much like the citizens of the realm. [68]
Besides attacking Mary's father, Pole's propaganda sought to teach the masses the traditions and rituals of the Catholic Church. For example, Marian propaganda emphasized the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and the spiritual supremacy of the pope, among other things. However, Pole's propaganda didn't just focus on enlightening the masses of the traditions and rituals of the Catholic Church, but also pointed out the hypocrisy of Protestant values. These attacks were more below the belt, as they were aimed at the founders of the Protestant sects, such as Martin Luther and the ruthless Henry VIII. Propaganda would portray Protestants as those who lacked charity and loyalty as they were willing to abandon their original faith at the first signs of turmoil. [69] Furthermore, being a Catholic was now a civic duty for the English people onto the realm as it "identifies allegiance to the regime." [70]
But propaganda would not be effective if it didn't extend its reach to the young. Pole tasked the instruction of the young to the Bishop of London, Edmund Bonner, who authored An Honest Godlye Instruction and Information for the Tradying, and Bringing vp of Children. [71] The schoolbook was designed to reverse the cancer of Protestantism that had been inflicted on the youth within the previous years of Edward's reign—who was responsible for advancing the radical beliefs of the Protestant faith. Bonner writes in the book: "seyng [seeing] of late dates, the youth of this realme hath ben [been] nouseled with ungodly Catechisms, and pernicious evil doctrine, whiche is to be feared, they wyl [will] not forget." [72] Bonner's school book instructed the youth to learn basic Catholic prayers and teachings, such as the Our Father, Hail Mary, the seven sacraments, the seven deadly sins, and the eight beatitudes. [73]
As noted earlier, the Wyatt Rebellion provided Pole with enough evidence to accuse Protestantism of causing social disorder. Another event that attested to the chaos caused by radical Protestants was the Paul's Cross Riot on August 13, 1553. A pupil of Bishop Bonner, Dr. Gilbert Bourne, was delivering a sermon at Paul's Cross in London when a Protestant riot broke out. In the riot, a dagger was thrown in the direction of Bourne who had to be rushed to safety. One of the first heretics to be burned under Mary's reign, John Rogers, was present at the riot. [74] Again, the riot served as more evidence that the Protestants were causing social disorder in England.
With regards to Marian propaganda overall, Duffy makes it clear that it was not "an isolated pamphlet here or a sermon there. Instead, it worked as a form of carpet bombing, driving its message home in many forms, but achieving a remarkable consistency across genre and occasion, and a powerful cumulative effect." [75] Furthermore, he argues that Mary's regime was not oblivious to the press and in fact utilized it well, as seen with the circulation of John Dudley's speech and the publication of books and pamphlets aimed not only at instilling knowledge of the Catholic faith, but countering the heresies of the Protestant faith. In the end, Protestantism was linked to "rebellion, irreverence and social disruption." [76]
