#and it's a large number but it nowhere near approaches 72000. nor the other one that floats around now which is 57000 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

fideidefenswhore · 2 years ago

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things that annoy me bcus i am an annoying person that has a henry viii blog and that for that reason seeing adjacent misinfo swirling online annoys me:

henry was not ‘catholic without the pope’. there literally is no such thing (i realize this makes labels rather difficult, he certainly also was not ‘protestant’, and that weird-religious-hybrid that had not existed before or in since does not go down as easy)

henry did not invest edward seymour as the duke of somerset (nor as the lord protector, for that matter....nor john dudley as that, either...)

it seems highly unlikely that he 'oversaw 72000 executions’. consider why it is that there is such a firm figure floating around for him and not other tudor monarchs. there was no official ‘execution roster’ that included everyone ever executed in england at this time. numbers we have generally come from the executions of religious martyrs (which leaders of catholicism and protestantism had great motives to preserve for posterity), executions of notable figures for treason, and executions as reprisals for rebellions. executions for “petty crimes” or repeat offenses that traditionally took place at tyburn, et al, were not so meticulously preserved.

now that we’re on that topic... there is very little indication that the years anne boleyn was queen were the pinnacle in number of tudor executions, either of her ‘enemies’ or otherwise. let’s break it down by years:

1533-36:

1533: the executions of john frith & andrew hewet (protestant martyrs, but neither here nor there): 2

1534: the executions of elizabeth barton, edward bocking, richard risby (her ‘enemies’, less than was decreed initially, at her behest according to contemporary record): 3

1535: the executions of the carthusian martyrs, thomas more, and john fisher (more arguably in the group of her opponents, although theirs was against the act of supremacy, not succession): 8

total: 13 (yeah, i was surprised, too, considering how vehemently that’s asserted)

1537-40:

john hussey, the earl of kildare+ his five uncles, pilgrimage of grace leaders, catholic martyr john forest, protestant martyrs, carthusians, thomas cromwell, treason offenses, etc.

= rounds up to around forty, likely the number tops out around 100 if you include the reprisal executions of the participants of the pilgrimage of grace, not just its leaders

#the execution one bothers me a lot bcus it's just common sense....#there's so much outrage that there's focus on executions for heresy and essentially averages taken from that (how many over how many years)#but those are the firmest numbers we have? becaus of the above reasons? of course that's what receives the focus #and of course it's used bcus it so reflects the changes in religion/ religious upheaval and to what degree over time #it entirely makes sense to use it as a metric #we go from one person executed for religion in twenty four years (henry the seventh)#to 79 for the same in nearly forty years (henry the 8th)#(estimate...do you count robert aske? etc)#two executed for religion in the six years of edward sixth #287 during the six years of mary's #189 during the 40+ years of elizabeth's #when we talk about statistics of executions for reprisals... it's probably a lot more difficult to ascertain #pilgrimage of grace vs ketts rebellion vs wyatt's rebellion #vs northern uprising #the major ones...#but anyway. for henry viii; it is rather straightforward to tally treason executions; heresy executions; rebellion executions #and it's a large number but it nowhere near approaches 72000. nor the other one that floats around now which is 57000

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