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The flames of martyrdom lasted till within a month of Mary’s end. It is difficult to understand how the Bishops could believe that the burning of this kind of heretic stamped out heresy. Hundreds, nay, thousands, of families went in perpetual mourning for the death of brother or cousin, a martyr faithful to the end. The Bishops might have understood the signs of the times: they might have seen the Mayor and Aldermen trying vainly to show conviction rather than obedience in attending all the processions and functions of the Church at which the people looked on sullenly and with murmurs; they might have listened to the wisdom of Cardinal Pole, who pointed out to the Queen and the Council that these severities were destructive to the Catholic Faith in the country. The Persecution reads like the revenge of a revengeful woman. “Burn! Burn! Burn!” she cries. “To avenge the tears of my mother; to avenge the unhappiness of my childhood; to avenge the act that made me illegitimate; to avenge the marriage of Anne Boleyn. Burn! Burn! Burn!”