And when King Henry VIII of England quarrelled with the Pope, divorced his royal Spanish wife and made himself head of the Church of England, he had acted with a terrifying ruthlessness. Sir Thomas More, saintly old Bishop Fisher, the brave monks of the London Charterhouse and several others all suffered martyrdom. Most of Henry's subjects were either cowed, or indifferent. But not all. In the north of England a huge Catholic uprising - the Pilgrimage of Grace - had made even the king tremble before it was put down. The English people, especially in the countryside, by no means accepted the break with the old religious ways.

Yet as long as King Harry lived, good Catholics could still hope that the true Church might be restored. Other rulers might be impressed by the doctrines of Martin Luther and the new generation of Protestant leaders who were shaking all Europe with their clamour for change. But King Harry of England certainly believed he was a good Catholic. True, he had denied the authority of the Pope; true, he had closed down all the monasteries and stolen all their vast lands. But in all this he claimed he was only reforming papal abuses. His English Church was still in doctrine Catholic; he continued to execute troublesome Protestants as long as he reigned.

It was only when his poor, sickly son, the boy-king Edward VI and his Protestant guardians came to power that the new Protestant religion was forced upon England. The Mass was outlawed, the churches stripped of popish ornament. Protestants - they were mostly merchants and craftsmen in the towns - might have liked it, but honest Catholic folk in the countryside were horrified.

Hope returned for loyal Catholics when, after six years of this enforced Protestantism, the boy-king died and Henry's daughter Mary came to the throne: child of the long-suffering Spanish princess - whom even Protestant Englishmen agreed Henry had treated shamefully when he divorced her - Mary wanted passionately to restore her mother's true faith to her now heretic island kingdom and, given time, she might have succeeded.

The trouble was, the English didn't like her. She was a sad woman. Deeply marked by her father's treatment of her mother, passionate for her faith, all she longed for was a good Catholic husband and the blessing of children. But she had no charm; she was dictatorial; she wasn't her father. When she decided to marry the most Catholic king of mighty Spain - which was sure to put Englishmen under Spanish rule - and the English Parliament protested, she told them it was none of their business. And then, of course, she burned several hundred English Protestants.