chapter 14._

"The total number of those who suffered in this persecution, from the martyrdom of Rogers, in February, 1555, to September, 1558, when its last ravages were felt, is variously related, in a manner sufficiently different to assure us that the relaters were independent witnesses, who did not borrow from each other, and yet sufficiently near to attest the general accuracy of their distinct statements. By Cooper they are estimated at about 290. According to Burnet they were 284. Speed calculates them at 274. The most accurate account is probably that of Lord Burleigh, who, in his treatise called 'The Execution of Justice in England,' reckons the number of those who died in that reign by imprisonment, torments, famine and fire, to be near 400, of which those who were burnt alive amounted to 290. From Burnet's Tables of the separate years, it is apparent that the persecution reached its full force in its earliest year."

_Sir J. Mackintosh, History of England, volume 2, chapter 11._

"Though Pole and Mary could have laid their hands on earl and baron, knight and gentleman, whose heresy was notorious, although, in the queen's own guard, there were many who never listened to a mass, they durst not strike where there was danger that they would be struck in return. ... They took the weaver from his loom, the carpenter from his workshop, the husbandman from his plough; they laid hands on maidens and boys 'who had never heard of any other religion than that which they were called on to abjure'; old men tottering into the grave, and children whose lips could but just lisp the articles of their creed; and of these they made their burnt-offerings; with these they crowded their prisons, and when filth and famine killed them, they flung them out to rot."

_J. A. Froude, History of England,