Pope sends direct message to Ben

[Ben Kenobi]

another fantastic example of you being proven wrong and then coming back with the same ridiculous assertion.

What's ridiculous about it? It's uncommon, but English does use it, contrary to what Elok asserted.

[Ben Kenobi]

You mention them, you name them.

I'm still waiting for you to acknowledge that yes, in fact, that Elizabeth executed Catholics for their faith. Are you conceding this point?

Otherwise, you're STILL an intellectual nullity as well as a liar and a fantasist. And a bigot.

Right, a bigot because I'm asserting that 'Good Queen Bess' isn't as good as her press clippings? And that, perhaps, someone with a grammar school education in England perhaps isn't the most objective person to assess this?

At grammar school we were reading Jacobean parliamentary reports in the original English, 17th Century French, and mediaeval English. Still, I like to give you something to aim for.

I don't know which is funnier. The fact that you think it's impressive, or the fact that you're simply trying to snow those who don't know better.

Yes, I'm sure that the diaries of Pitt the younger are somewhat more challenging than 'Dick and Jane'.

[molly bloom]

- one of whom took 10 axe chops as a 65 year old woman, we can be certain that they died of sepsis in prison and not a ****ing execution.

Or was he that much of a ***** that he had to kill the lady because she was a revolutionary who could overthrow him?

65 year old women.

Thomas Cranmer, once Archbishop of Canterbury, was burnt at the stake on Mary Tudor's orders, because of his faith. Not because he plotted to overthrow her, or took up arms against her, but because she revived statutes relating to heresy from the Mediaeval era to buttress her planned (and failed) revivification of the Roman Catholic faith.

Thomas Cranmer was 67 when he died. Two years older than the Countess and he was author of the Book of Common Prayer. Does this mean Anglicans win on the two years age difference ?

But the bachelor of divinity was more earnest with him: unto whom he answered, that, as concerning his recantation, he repented it right sore, because he knew it was against the truth; with other words more. Whereby the Lord Williams cried, 'Make short, make short.' Then the bishop took certain of his friends by the hand. But the bachelor of divinity refused to take him by the hand, and blamed all the others that so did, and said, he was sorry that ever he came in his company. And yet again he required him to agree to his former recantation. And the bishop answered, (showing his hand), 'This was the hand that wrote it, and therefore shall it suffer first punishment.'
Fire being now put to him, he stretched out his right hand, and thrust it into the flame, and held it there a good space, before the fire came to any other part of his body; where his hand was seen of every man sensibly burning, crying with a loud voice, 'This hand hath offended.' As soon as the fire got up, he was very soon dead, never stirring or crying all the while.

http://englishhistory.net/tudor/pcranmer.html

Mary made martyrs for their faith out of Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley. By marrying a Spaniard, she made nationalists out of even English Catholics.

[Ben Kenobi]

AS I NOTED, you can use a regular deck... but it's not a rook deck, and in rook, there are no aces... so again, his expression makes no sense for rook, just as it doesn't make any sense for bridge. He's the one that brought up the fact that rook uses a different deck, so he must be familiar with the game and know there are no aces in rook.

Rook uses colored cards numbers 1-14. Red, Yellow/Orange, Green and Black. With 1s high like aces. Once again, Ming is totally wrong here.

I don't know which is sadder - the fact that Ming is demonstrating his ignorance of the game, or that he's staking his claim of intellectual superiority over a game he's never seen or played but looked up once on Wikipedia, after I made reference.

[Ben Kenobi]

You think the 300 odd people burned by Mary had all burned other people? Are you stupid?

Which came first? Mary or Henry? Perhaps if Henry hadn't tried to execute all the Catholics - religious tension would have been lower. Blaming the Catholics for 'exacerbating religious tensions', when it was Henry who sparked them strikes me as blaming the victim. But then, history for children is written by the winners which is why you know about Henry VIII and not Edward III.

[Ben Kenobi]

I don't know who taught him how English "was spoke," but they did a meh job of it.

I suggest we each make a recording. Then we can put it up to Poly to see who speaks the Queen's English better.

I'll work with any script of your choice. Hey, what do you have to lose? Speaking English better than a deaf person?? Easy money.

[molly bloom]

I'm still waiting for you to acknowledge that yes, in fact, that Elizabeth executed Catholics for their faith. Are you conceding this point?

No. You haven't shown she did so. I'm still waiting for you to provide proof of any of the absurd figures you plucked out of the air. You don't provide any, because you can't. I'm sure some of these figures you airily reference, IF THEY WERE TRUE, would be at least supported by a website, or a book, a thesis, a scholar- yet amazingly, you never refer to any of these sources.

And a review of a book with inaccurate figures inserted doesn't count, by the way.

Right, a bigot because I'm asserting that 'Good Queen Bess' isn't as good as her press clippings?

No, you're a bigot because you're a particular type of convert- one lacking a sound intellectual base. And do stop referring to 'Godd Queen Bess'- this is isn't Hollywood or some naff theme park.

And that, perhaps, someone with a grammar school education in England perhaps isn't the most objective person to assess this?

Hahahahahahahaha.

My 'grammar school' education alone has been quite up to the task of correcting your copious errors. The fact that you know nothing about it, other than the scant information I deign to give to you, makes your attempts to mock it all the more laughable.

Still you have your 'history' degree, and I have a supply of lavatory roll.

It seems to me you paid rather more for your arsewipe than I did for mine.

[Ben Kenobi]

we're talking about the numbers. you have constantly tried to inflate the numbers killed by protestant monarchs and minimise those by catholic ones. you have been corrected several times, by molly and myself, yet you continue to post them.

I don't think including the numbers killed in the Pilgrimage of Grace is an exaggeration. Most lists for Elizabeth exclude them, which is not true, although they do usually include the most prominent like Thomas Percy who had the misfortune of being Catholic and plantagenet.

[kentonio]

Which came first? Mary or Henry? Perhaps if Henry hadn't tried to execute all the Catholics - religious tension would have been lower. Blaming the Catholics for 'exacerbating religious tensions', when it was Henry who sparked them strikes me as blaming the victim. But then, history for children is written by the winners which is why you know about Henry VIII and not Edward III.

Ah so you are just stupid. Good to have confirmation.

[molly bloom]

Perhaps if Henry hadn't tried to execute all the Catholics -

He didn't. You're a liar and a fantasist.

But then, history for children is written by the winners which is why you know about Henry VIII and not Edward III.

I'm not aware that Edward III is felt to be a loser in this country.

Admittedly, Rodin's scultpture group of the Burghers of Calais stands outside the Houses of Parliament, but it reflects more on Edward's mercy and magnanimity than anything else. The king responsible for the victories at Sluys and Crecy and Halidon Hill is not disregarded in this country because he was a Roman Catholic.

After all, what other religious options were open to him ? Catharism ? Greek Orthodoxy ? Islam ? Judaism ? Only a blithering idiot and bigot thinks the way you do.

[Ben Kenobi]

No. You haven't shown she did so.

Then I fail to see the point in supplying lists when I can simply deny that anyone was ever executed under Mary's reign for their faith. Checkmate.

I'm still waiting for you to provide proof of any of the absurd figures you plucked out of the air.

And I'm still waiting for you to acknowledge that Elizabeth executed Catholics for their faith. You've got a name - Thomas Percy.

You don't provide any, because you can't.

I don't feel the need to provide you any because you refuse to acknowledge that any persecution occurred under Elizabeth. It's completely pointless. Concede that and we can move on to the names.

I'm sure some of these figures you airily reference, IF THEY WERE TRUE, would be at least supported by a website

You've got one right in front of you. And yet you call me intellectually dishonest.

And a review of a book with inaccurate figures inserted doesn't count, by the way.

So your claim is that exactly zero Catholics were executed during the reign of Queen Elizabeth?

No, you're a bigot because you're a particular type of convert- one lacking a sound intellectual base.

It grinds your gears that I was a perfect Englishman who rejected your faith to find another. Yes, of course, I converted because of 'lack of intellect'. Because to acknowledge that there are significant rationales would crumble the entire ediface you've built around me and my ideas.

Or put it another way - what exactly about your ideas would be foreign to me, Molly? I was a liberal agnostic who actually liked Woodrow Wilson. I know your ideas, the problem is that you don't care to understand mine. You've got absolutely nothing in your entire armory that could surprise me.

this is isn't Hollywood or some naff theme park.

Would you prefer "Bessie?"

My 'grammar school' education alone has been quite up to the task of correcting your copious errors.

I'd be shocked if grammar school in England were taught something contrary to the public view of Elizabeth as the Virgin Queene who saved them from popery and the Spanish Inquisition. It's as much a part of your national 'identity', as guns are to America.

The fact that you know nothing about it, other than the scant information I deign to give to you

Are you really this retarded Molly? Apparently so.

Still you have your 'history' degree, and I have a supply of lavatory roll.

And how sour do those grapes taste?

[Ben Kenobi]

He didn't. You're a liar and a fantasist.

Which explains the Act of Supremacy outlawing the Olde Mass - his execution of priests, the dissolution of the monasteries and the fact that England went without a Catholic bishop for nearly 300 years?

I'm not aware that Edward III is felt to be a loser in this country.

Are you suggesting you were taught just as much about Edward as Henry?

Admittedly, Rodin's scultpture group of the Burghers of Calais stands outside the Houses of Parliament, but it reflects more on Edward's mercy and magnanimity than anything else. The king responsible for the victories at Sluys and Crecy and Halidon Hill is not disregarded in this country because he was a Roman Catholic.

You've boasted about your tolerant open-mindedness. Have you taken your turn in a parish of Our Lady of Walsingham? Have you dropped something in the collection bin? I noticed a conspicuous absence in your most enlightened universality.

Only a blithering idiot and bigot thinks the way you do.

It has become the collective fantasy of this age that one can hate Catholicism, but not any other religion and call themselves 'diverse'.

[molly bloom]

Only 31 that we know the names of (not counting Foxe's book) were executed under Mary. That's it. .

Get your piece of slate and dabble your fingers in your own faeces, you're going to have to take notes.

In December 1554 three old statutes against heresy were re-established. On 4 February 1555, the first of the Protestants, John Rogers, was burnt at Smithfield.

In the course of the next three years and a half, nearly three hundred people, high and low, rich and poor, were burnt as Protestant heretics. They included 5 former bishops: Ferrar of St. David's, Hooper, Ridley, Latimer, and Cranmer.

England received back the Pope at Mary's behest, not because the English wanted him.

At the end of August 1554 Suffolk villagers tried to burn a church with an entire congregation at mass inside. In the same month indignant peasants cut off the nose of a Kentish priest. In February (the Imperial ambassador) Renard reported his fear of a rebellion if the burnings were not stopped.

On 29 August 1556, 1 000 people cheered through the streets a roped chain of 22 men and women from Colchester on their way towards burning.

'The Burnings' from 'The Reformation In England to 1559' in Owen Chadwick's 'The Reformation' .

They resorted to kidnapping Sir John Cheke, who had been tutor to Edward VI, and threatening him with burning if he did not recant. Inevitably, the burnings became associated indelibly with ecclesiastical despotism and the Pope.

[molly bloom]

Only 31 that we know the names of (not counting Foxe's book) were executed under Mary. That's it.

Still taking notes ? Still dim ? Good, then I'll begin.

Mary's third parliament revived the heresy laws. In all, 282 victims passed through the flames to teh Moloch of persecution.

Between 1510 and 1527 there were 4 executions for heresy in the diocese of London.

Under Mary there were more than 100 in 4 years.

Of the total number of 282, one in three were clerics, one in five women, and two in three in London and the south-east of England.

From 'Anglicanism to 1600' in David Christie-Murray's 'A History Of Heresy'.

Available from all good non-bigoted bookshops now.

[molly bloom]

Only 31 that we know the names of (not counting Foxe's book) were executed under Mary. That's it. .

Still crap at history ? Still taking notes ? Super. On y va.

Effective reconversion involved both the eradication of Protestantism and the forging of a new, more dynamic, Catholicism. The first, it wa shoped, would be accomplished by terror. Some eight hundred Protestants fled abroad, to Frankfurt, to Strasbourg, to Geneva....

A large underground church flourished in London, meeting at various inns annd houses with congregations up to two hundred. Smaller groups met elsewhere, always subject to the danger of government spies or being given away by loose talk.

Altogether some 280 heretics were burnt in Mary's reign, the majority of them humble men like Thomas Hale, a Bristol shoemaker, or Cicely Ormes the wife of a Norwich weaver. Only 21 clergy were executed.

The great majority of the burnings were in the south-east.

London provided 67 victims,

Kent 58,

Essex 39.

Only 2 heretics were burnt north of the Trent, and except for Gloucester (where the bishop, James Brooks, was a zealot and there were 10 victims) very few in the west of England or in Wales.

The burnings impinged... disproportionately on those who could best make their hostility felt, and whose adhesion was likely to be decisive in a crisis.

As far as his sources and the historical conventions of his day allowed, Foxe wrote good history...

From 'Edward VI & Mary' in C.S.L. Davies's 'Peace, Print & Protestantism'.

Probably not stocked in the Vatican souvenir shop.