In 1555, the burning of Protestants under Mary I of England began in earnest. The persecutions sought to restore Roman Catholicism by punishing heresy publicly. They left a deep mark on English Protestant memory and on later views of religious tyranny.

John Foxe's Book of Martyrs turned these deaths into a major source of Protestant imagination. The language of flames, witness, and persecuting power echoed through English religious poetry, sermons, ballads, and anti-Catholic polemic.