I’m not the one for blood and gore, I get a little weezy seeing my own blood sometimes so if an execution would of suppilied alot of bloodshed I don’t think I could stomach it, now or then. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t attend, I would out of curiousity or pity or just plain interest.

I’m glad I live in a time where we have freedom to speak our mind Boleyn. Although sometimes I read stories of people who suffered for 30 or 45 minutes burning because of damp wood or incompetent, er “staff”, and I wonder their bodies didn’t go into shock and just shut down from the pain before the flames took a good hold.

Boleyn,
Where can we find the story of Pettromine Massey? Or better yet, if you know it, could you please tell us about it.
You have sparked my interest.
I am sad to hear that the gunpowder around the neck did not quicken death. I was under the impression it speeded death. I thought it was a kind act that someone gave Anne Askew gunpowder. That poor lady had suffered so much and I thought it was a kindness that she died more quickly because of the gunpowder. To know she may have suffered more because of the gunpowder is very, very disheartening.
Some of the burnings could take up to 4 hours if the the wood was wet. I recently read that some would die of smoke inhalation before they burned. Not sure if that is true.

Olga It may be my frightful spelling, which has made it difficult for you to find anything about this poor lady. But it is exactly what Anyanka says. Perotine Massey. I found it quite by chance one day. Anyway it’s a long story so make sure you have a glass of water and a couple of Aspirin on stand by..
Perotine Massey is not a familiar name to many. When we think of the Protestants persecuted during Mary’s reign we often reflect on the prominent victims like Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury. Perotine was no one ‘special’. So why is she, or more accurately her death, so controversial? Is it because she was a woman? No – women could be arraigned and condemned for a variety of crimes and Perotine was certainly not the first nor the last female burnt for heresy in England. Was it her status? Again no, for she was from a modest background as were numerous other martyrs. So what made Perotine controversial? The answer is that she was pregnant at the time of her death.

Here are the details on Perotine supplied by John Foxe in his Book of Martyrs. She was the daughter of one Katherine Cauches (or ‘Cowchen’) and she lived with her mother and one sister called Guillemine in St Peter Port, Guernsey. A woman in her community had stolen a silver cup and tried to sell it to Perotine but knowing that it was actually the property of anther, Perotine informed the actual cup’s owner. The thief was arrested and Perotine was also questioned for any impossible involvement in the robbery. Sufficient evidence could not be found for her involvement but she was instead accused of not attending church. Was she perhaps accused by the disgruntled thief? Regardless, the case was brought to the dean of Guernsey and on 14th July 1556 she was examined before a number of local important figures (amongst them the dean). Either on the 17th or the 27th July she was condemned as a heretic, and burnt at the stake. She was strangled beforehand but the rope broke. Whilst on the stake she gave birth to a boy and one eyewitness (a ‘W. House’) initially saved the baby but the bailiff, Helier Gosselin, insisted that it too should die. As a consequence the infant was thrust into the flames.

It is a horrifying story. But is it true – and if so why did they still execute her and why, when she gave birth at the stake, did they not save the baby?

And if it is false, why invent such a story in the first place?

Reasons as to why the story was mentioned – or even invented – by Foxe is obvious. The murder of a newborn infant was regarded as heinous to contemporaries, as it does to us, thus those responsible for this were cast as unjust and brutal. This is exactly the manner in which the Protestant Foxe wished to present Mary and the Catholic Church. But that does not necessarily mean he invented it. Not all of what Foxe recorded was inaccurate – no one doubts, for example, that Cranmer was sent to the stake even after recanting his Protestant beliefs regardless of the fact that his recantation should have saved him.

The issue of the pregnancy though raises questions. During the early modern period there was a plea known as ‘benefit of belly’. This was where a pregnant woman who had been condemned to death could raise her condition and as such the execution would be stalled until after the child’s birth. The existence of this plea indicates that the unborn child was not regarded as culpable of its mother’s sins and as such was not to share her fate. She could still remain in prison, and in most cases she was not guaranteed a full pardon. But nonetheless the child was still to live.
So why was Perotine sent to the scaffold? Perhaps her pregnancy was not known to herself or to the officials. Pregnancy in the early stages was hard to determine with much certainty during the sixteenth-century, and obvious signs like the cessation of menstruation could be regarded instead as a symptom of a general ailment. If the female criminal was pregnant she needed to raise the condition first and then be examined. But if she did not know of her pregnancy then she could not do this. There was also the possibility that she could tell the officials of this, be examined by a groups of matrons and have her pregnancy denied. This may sound odd to us but there are cases of women being sent to the scaffold although they claiming to be pregnant but were declared not to be so by others. Cathy McClive records the death of one female criminal who was hanged and dissected in 1666 outside the Louvre. The woman had previously pleaded that she was pregnant but this was overruled. The crowd was said to have been shocked when during the execution it was discovered that she was had been around four months pregnant.

According to Jasper Ridley in Bloody Mary’s Martyrs (2001), Perotine did not tell the judges at her trial that she was pregnant although it is hard to deduce whether this was consciously done or whether she really didn’t know about her condition. But why did the bailiff, once the child was born, decide to condemn the child with the mother? The bailiff was asked the same question years later during the reign of Elizabeth I. He was tried for his actions and his response was that the child had been in the woman’s (and therefore the ‘heretic’s’) womb and therefore shared her sin. This was not regarded to be a just reason and subsequently he was condemned for murder. But Elizabeth pardoned him.

In my opinion the story of Perotine would have made many uneasy because regardless whether the contemporary was Catholic or Protestant the death of a newborn infant was viewed as unacceptable. The charges were so damning that one Catholic writer and Elizabethan exile, Thomas Harding stressed that she had not told the judges at her trial that she was pregnant and had she done so she would have not been sent to the stake. Importantly he did not deny that Perotine had existed or that had given birth at the stake; rather he was challenging the idea that the Catholic Church had anything to do with the death.

The case of Perotine reveals certain problems within the system of persecuting heretics during Mary’s reign. Mary and leading Church officials could of course not involve themselves in every case of heresy – this had to be left to local officials. Therefore the system rested on the belief that local officials could oversee the burnings in a correct and appropriate manner. But as Linda Porter in her biography on Mary notes, ‘some local administrative and justices were as zealous as individuals in pursuing heretics’ and as such the system was capable to be abused (p.361).

So does that mean that Mary is not to blame for the death of Perotine or any other cases of abuse within the system? Should we blame instead zealous officials like the Guernsey bailiff? It is hard to decree that Mary was directly responsible for this case and we have no idea whether she was even informed of it. It is true that she was not there to personally administer the death of the child and it is extremely unlikely that she, along with most contemporaries, would have issued the death of an infant. But before we put the case down to the corruption of those directly involved, it must be remembered that there did exist those close to the political centre that urged caution. Amongst them was the Franciscan friar Alfonso de Castro, who was part of Philip of Spain’s household. Whilst he was a supporter of the method of burning heretics, Castro urged that time needed to be taken to convert the Protestants – in essence that burning should be the final option and the authorities should spend as much time as possible trying to make the person recant. In other words it was not to be a rushed affair, like the case of Perotine.

So Perotine did exist and today a plaque in her honour (along with her mother and sister who were burnt alongside her) can be seen on the Tower Hill steps in St Peter’s Port. She may not have been the most famous Marian martyr, and today her name is frequently left out of books on Mary and the church during this period. But her story was regarded as important enough for Foxe to raise it and for Harding to attack. Ultimately I don’t perceive the case of Perotine to be an example of Mary’s supposed brutality, nor do I think it is fair to use such situations to form a complete judgment of Mary’s church. But speaking as someone who favours a more balanced portrayal of Mary and her church, I wonder whether it is not amiss to ignore certain flaws of the system just as it is illogical to deny this queen of any achievements.

If you recall, Lady Jane Grey was examinded by a panel of matrons before her execution to check she wasn’t pregnant.

eta wiki on pleading the belly.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P….._the_belly

I do not know if the story of this horrific execution is true or not, well can we ever know for certain, but I would just say that there are similar stories from many cultures and times including for example in the USA stories of coloured people abused by whites where the similar story is told right down to the person in charge taking the infant and throwing it into the flames of the mother. I think it is quite possible that this is one of those ‘myths and legends’ which has to have had some basis but was/is used by detractors to add to their vilfication of a particular person/group/political party etc.

Boleyn, I’ve actually ordered Jasper Ridley’s Bloody Mary’s Martyrs actually, I’m glad you mentioned it
I read about Perotine in Alison Weir’s Children of England, I think it was just a brief mention. But I’m sceptical Mary would have had anything to do with it directly, as Anyanka pointed out she had lady Jane examined for pregnancy before her execution. I haven’t read a lot about Mary so far butI do not believe for one moment that Mary would have had anything to do with the murder of an unborn child.

I rather think that Mary Tudor, although given the well known moniker of bloody Mary, and was responsible for a lot of deaths in her reign I’m actually willing to except that there were perhaps a number of executions that were carried out in her name, which she actually had no knowledge of. Certainly I think that Bishop Gardiner was one of the people who tried to execute Elizabeth without due process, and signed the execution himself, but without the rubber stamp it was of course useless when Mary was ill. Which thankfully Elizabeth had the brain to see through. After Gardiner died Bishop Bonner took over Gardiner’s position and in some ways was worse than Gardiner ever was, and I rather think it was possible that he himself was responsible for a number of these so called Heretical burnings which of course were blamed on Mary although surely Mary would have had to have read these documents before signing them? or is just entirely possible that Mary’s signiture was forged?
I really can’t see Mary Tudor being party to the murder of an innocent child, especially as she was so desperate herself to become a mother.
Mary was really desperate to actually save Lady Jane Grey’s life, and perhaps would have done if her father hadn’t of made some damn fool attempt at rescuing her by being involved in the Wyatt plot, although I’m led to believe it wasn’t just that that led Mary into executing Jane. I believe Philip and the Spanish toadies would only agree in Philip coming to England and marrying Mary on the condition she executed Lady Jane. That in itself seems a very strange thing to insist upon, as to me Elizabeth was the bigger threat as Mary and her were half sisters, unlike Jane who was only a second cousin.
I wonder what would have happened if Mary had told Philip to get stuffed? Who would she have married instead? and more to the point why was she so insistant on marrying Philip? Was it perhaps an attempt to keep the connection going with her mother’s family perhaps?

Either way I don’t think the marriage was a partically happy one, from Philip’s point of view anyway. Mary we know was besotted with Philip, again I have to ask why?
I think Mary is again one of those Tudor enigmas that keep cropping up from time to time and biting us in the bum.
My impression of her is that she was a very lonely lovelorn woman who perhaps believed that by burning heretics God would be pleased with her etc. I’m given to believe that even the Pope was appauled by her actions at some point in her reign and threatened her with excommunication Don’t quote me, please. Philip I think perhaps made her very misable although she did love him, ‘m inclined to think he didn’t treat her with all due respect and was perhaps a little abusive to her, where as he charmed Elizabeth or so he thought and maybe thought, that with the old bag out the way I can get into Elizabeth’s knicker drawer and bank balance and again maybe that was something she perhaps saw whenever Elizabeth was at court which is why she shut Elizabeth away out of sight and mind but perhaps also to protect to from Philip’s evil intentions too.
Mary just needed to be loved, and sadly she never got it.

Mary grew up in a VERY dysfunctional family. I think the way she ‘grabbed onto’ Philip was influenced by the way her father treated her. She wanted to be loved and have a family. I think Maggyann has a good point. Mary’s Catholicism was the only constant in her life and is what got her through some very lonely times and it made her faith even stronger. I think her attack on Protestants was partly due to this (she truly believed she was doing the right thing), but I think that Philip had a huge influence on her. Even though Mary wouldn’t have known all that was going on with the purging of Protestants, she is the one that got the ball rolling and because she was at the ‘top of the ladder’, it was up to her to keep control of the situation. She may not have personally signed those warrants for executions all over the country, but I’m sure she would have had reports. If she believed that things were getting out of hand, she could have done something about it. She didn’t because she believed what was happening was not only right, but necessary. I feel sorry for the younger Mary, growing up lonely and ignored by her father, but I don’t feel sorry for Mary the Queen. She and Philip both were fanatical.