One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present.” ~ Golda Meir

The Canterbury Martyrs were 16th-century English Protestant martyrs. They were executed for so-called heresy in Canterbury,, Kent, and were the last Protestants burnt during the reign of Mary Tudor. Mary was Henry VIII’s daughter with his first wife Catherine of Aragon.

She became Queen of England after Edward’s death.
When Edward VI died, there was a brief nine-day coup when Jane Grey tried to install herself on the throne. It can be noted that Edward wanted Jane to be on the throne rather than Mary. But Mary, who was next in the line of succession overthrew that coup and became Queen. She was Mary 1 of England.

How did she get the nickname, Bloody Mary?
England had gone through the reformation, particularly during Edward’s reign. That meant the country, basically converted from being a Catholic country to being a Protestant country.

The problem was when Mary came to the throne, she was a devout Catholic.
Why was this a problem? Because now a lot of her subjects were protestants. Many had no desire to turn back to Catholicism.

Mary didn’t like this. She thought that because she was Queen, they should do what she said when it came to religion.

So she started burning protestants at stake as heretics. During her five years on the throne, she burnt around 280 people to death. The most famous of these were the Oxford Martyrs, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer.

It was this that earned her the rather horrible nickname of Bloody Mary.

Despite her belief in the papal supremacy, she ruled constitutionally as the Supreme Head of the English Church, a contradiction under which she bridled. She found herself entirely unable to restore the vast number of ecclesiastical properties handed over or sold to private landowners. Although she burned a number of leading Protestant churchmen, many reformers either went into exile or remained subversively active in England during her reign, producing a torrent of reforming propaganda that she was unable to stem.

On 15 January 1557, Stephen Kempe, of Norgate, Kent, William Waterer, of Biddenden, Kent, William Prowting, of Thornham, Kent, William Lowick, of Cranbrooke, Kent, Thomas Hudson, of Selling, Kent and William Hay, of Hythe, Kent, all were burnt for not accepting the seven sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church, praying to the saints, the mass hearing in Latin, and justification by works.

If you think things have changed or this could never happen again on this day JANUARY 15 2015 Muslims in Niger throw Molotov cocktails through the windows of sixty-eight churches, burning them to the ground in an effort to eliminate the Christian presence from the nation.

Courtesy of Victor McKinnon at Church History (Facebook)