The consistent belittling of Mary’s achievement by unsympathetic historians has extended to complaining that she did not inaugurate a ‘Counter-Reformation’ in her realm - a criticism which boils down to not establishing the Jesuits or presiding over a period of devotional creativity such as that represented a little later in Spain by the likes of St Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross. As so often with the reporting of her reign, prejudice and hindsight have combined to blind historians to much of what happened, and to make them misinterpret whatever was not missed. Eamon Duffy’s work on the Marian Restoration has uncovered evidence of effective religious renewal which historians have hitherto simply ignored. Cardinal Pole’s legislation for the English Church, produced at a synod held in London under his authority as papal legate in 1556, laid a firm foundation for reform. The book of homilies (modelled on Cranmer’s homilies of 1547, but now promoting Catholic rather than Protestant doctrine), the detailed explanation of Catholic doctrine (modelled on Henry Vlll’s King’s Book of 1543, but correcting it where necessary), and the ‘primer’ or prayer book for the laity (also modelled on examples from Henry’s reign) were all widely printed and circulated. The judicial separation of hundreds of parish priests from their recently acquired wives (now legally reclassified as concubines and more commonly vilified as whores) was not simply a human tragedy (perhaps not at all in some cases) but a remarkable administrative achievement, entirely typical of general Tudor effectiveness in managing the Church.
Even Mary’s extraordinary record of founding religious houses is turned against her, as the fact that ‘only’ six monasteries were functioning by the time she died (compared with over 800 when she was born) is made a mark of failure. This hostile judgement is particularly unthinking. Henry VIII had foreclosed on half a millennium of monastic heritage in barely five years, but founding religious houses was a lengthy and expensive business. Has anyone else ever founded six monasteries in five years? Henry V, one of England’s greatest kings, had planned to found three religious houses - one of Celestines, one of Bridgettines and one of Carthusians - but only the latter two were ever established, and neither was complete when he died after a reign of eight years. Moreover, Mary’s foundations were made in a period of great fiscal stringency (and for that reason were not as well endowed as they had formerly been). Indeed, she was criticised for wasting money on monks and nuns at a time when the currency was debased, inflation was rampant, and the expenses of war were imposing a huge tax burden on her people.
The houses she refounded were: the Dominican friars at Smithfield and the Observant Franciscan friars at Greenwich (April 1555); Westminster Abbey (November 1556); the Charterhouse at Sheen (January 1557); the Bridgettines of Syon (April 1557); and the Dominican Nuns at King’s Langley (June 1557), who shortly before Mary’s death were given back their original house at Dartford (September 1558). In addition, Mary re-established the Fraternity of Jesus in St Paul’s Cathedral (July 1556) and the Savoy Hospital (November 1556). Several of these houses had royal and personal associations which were important for the queen. Greenwich had been founded by Henry VII (as had the Savoy), and had shown steadfast support for Mary and her mother in the early 1530s. Syon and Sheen were Henry V’s foundations (she highlighted this connection in her will), and both had been loyal to Catherine and Mary in the crisis of the 1530s. Finally, Westminster Abbey was still the temple of the English monarchical cult, and in March 1557 the new abbot, the congenial John Feckenham, restored the shrine of St Edward the Confessor, which had stood at its spiritual heart until 1538. Mary’s will bequeathed huge sums to these houses, but her legacies, like much else in her will, were not honoured by her successor. In particular, Mary was anxious to bring the body of her mother to rest in the Tudor mausoleum, Henry VII’s chapel at the back of Westminster Abbey. But Catherine of Aragon still lies in Peterborough Cathedral.
It was hardly to be expected, in the climate of doubt and insecurity created by the kaleidoscopic religious changes of the preceding twenty years, that Mary’s lead would inspire a wholesale and instant resurgence of English monasticism. Even those who endowed chantries and Masses for the sake of their souls in her reign often expressed shrewd doubts about the long-term security of their investments, and sought to secure them against state depredations should the devotional climate cool once more. Yet Mary did set an example, and by the time she died, there were signs that it was beginning to be followed. If the Counter-Reformation had gone on to succeed in England, then it would have depended heavily, as it did in Europe, on a revival of monasticism and on the rise of new religious orders (such as the Capuchins, Jesuits and Discalced Carmelites). But the Counter-Reformation in Europe was a matter of generations, not of years. Mary could hardly have done any more, and might well have done a great deal less.
World History
