Hello everyone and welcome to the History of England, episode 269, Scorn and Ill Will.

Irritatingly, it is time to turn the clock back from where we got to with Thomas Kranmer,

which is spookily exactly what Mary tried to do in her first Parliament. How's about

that for a link, ladies and gentlemen? Mary may have arrived with gentle words, but

once Parliament met on the 5th of October 1553, it was pretty clear what her objective

was. Not that many were fooled by the pretence at toleration, but there is this sort of

really weird period until the end of that first Parliament in 1553, where Protestants

were standing on the letter of the still-existing Edwardian reformed law. While all around

them, Catholics were with some relief, firing up the old mass again, digging up the candlesticks

and where they'd hidden them, restoring the worn and much loved symbols of their devotions

to pride of place, in those places where they'd managed to preserve them.

There is trouble and moderate mayhem from both sides during yet another fractious period,

but I'll give you just one example of the sort of things that go on. From, by the way,

Peter Marshall's excellent book on the English Reformation, Heretics and Believers, I

recommend it unto you in thy mercy.

At Paul Indorcerid, the priest was a chap called Thomas Hancock. Thomas Hancock appears

to have been a Protestant-minded sort of bloke. Thomas Hancock was a man after my own

heart in the sense that he was very compliant. A man after my own heart, because after all,

there wasn't for us compliant floaked doing what we're told. What fun would there be

for all you rebels out there to question and challenge the existing order? There'd

be no existing order to challenge. So, although he clearly did not wish to do so, and wanted

to keep on with his reformed religion thing, he stood up in church and did what he had

...