Nobody expects the English Inquisition: Mary I’s persecution of Protestants through European eyes

Journal article

Historians have long regarded Mary I’s brutal campaign against heresy—a campaign which saw almost 300 Protestants burned alive—as a clumsy, heavy-handed and ultimately counter-productive attempt to turn back the clock of the English Reformation. However, in 2009, Eamon Duffy advanced a controversial new interpretation. Mary’s anti-heresy campaign was not only well planned and executed, Duffy argued, but it was achieving considerable success by the end of her reign: ‘the Protestant hydra was being decapitated’. Duffy’s arguments have since remained contentious, with most historians finding his suggestions unconvincing. This article seeks to move the debate forward and in new directions by considering it from a very different perspective. By exploring what Catholics in Spain, Italy and France thought about the Marian anti-heresy campaign, it argues that, in the eyes of Catholic Europe, the English queen’s efforts were not only sensible and effective, but worthy of imitation. Focusing on two case-studies, the archdiocese of Milan under Cardinal Carlo Borromeo and the princely court of France during the ascendency of Cardinal Charles de Lorraine, this article demonstrates how two influential European cardinals consciously appropriated aspects of Mary’s campaign in their own battles against heresy. In this way, it not only suggests that Duffy’s controversial arguments about the burnings deserve a second look, but it also makes a claim for the wider European significance of Mary’s brief English Counter-Reformation.

Authors: Smith, F

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Journal: English Historical Review
• Article number: ceag002
• Publication date: 2026-02-18
• Acceptance date: 2026-01-15
• DOI: 10.1093/ehr/ceag002
• EISSN: 1477-4534
• ISSN: 0013-8266
• Language: English