Question 1
Using these four sources in their historical context, assess how far they support the view that
there was resistance and opposition to Mary’s religious policies.
Source A: A Yorkshire priest records the reactions of people to the accession of Mary Tudor as queen.
Queen Mary was proclaimed at York on the 21st day of July and at Pontefract, Doncaster, Rotherham and many other market towns on the 22nd July, where everyone in all places in the north parts greatly rejoiced, making great fires, drinking wine and ale, praising God. But all such as were of heretical opinions, with bishops and priests having wives, did nothing rejoice, but began to be ashamed of themselves, for the common people would point them with fingers in places where they saw them. And in the beginning of September there were very few parish churches in Yorkshire, but mass was sung or said in Latin on the first Sunday of the said month.
Robert Parkyn, Narrative of the Reformation, 1553.
Source B: A royal messenger, cousin of a former lord chancellor, records an eyewitness account of an event in London.
On Sunday, a villainous event took place in Cheapside. A dead cat was hanged on the post of the gallows, dressed in cloth like the vestment of a priest at mass with crosses front and back. Its head was shaved, a bottle was nearby and between its front paws was a piece of paper like a consecrated wafer. It was taken to Bishop Bonner of London, who showed it to the audience attending the sermon at St. Paul’s Cross. The lord mayor offered a reward to anyone naming the culprit. Inquiries were made and several persons were imprisoned under suspicion.
Charles Wriothesley, Wriothesley’s Chronicle, April 1554.
Source C: A London merchant, who welcomed Mary’s intention to restore Catholicism, outlines what happened to some Protestant clergy.
The fourth day of February the bishop of London went into Newgate prison with other doctors to degrade Hooper and Rogers – sometime vicar of St Paul’s. The same day was Rogers carried, between 10 and 11 o’clock, into Smithfield and burned for his critical opinions, with great company of the queen’s guard. The fifth day of February between 5 and 6 in the morning, departed master Hooper to Gloucester and Saunders to Coventry, both to be burned.
Henry Machyn, diary, February 1555.
Source D: The officials of parish churches in Canterbury diocese, a centre of Protestantism, are ordered to fit out their churches for Catholic worship.
The Church of Goodnestone First, front cloths for the altar for the holidays and a canopy and veil against Lent. The reparations as tiling and glazing to be done upon the Chancel at the said Michaelmas and the reparations needful to be done at the said feast.
The Parish Church of Goudhurst To repair the glass windows of the church before All Saints. Also, that the window in the belfry be glazed before Midsummer, and to be closed otherwise decently so that no pigeons may come into the church. That the vicarage house to be repaired. That the churchyard to be enclosed decently.
Archdeacon Harpsfield’s Visitation, 1557.
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