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326 General History of Europe restored to the communion of the Catholic Church the "Kneeling" Parliament, which theoretically, of course, represented the nation. During the last four years of Mary's reign the most serious religious persecution in English history occurred. No less than QUEEN MARY. (BY ANTONIO MORO) This lifelike portrait, in the Madrid collection, is by a favorite painter of Philip II, Mary's husband. It was painted about 1554, and one gets the same impressions of Mary's character from the portrait that one does from reading about her two hundred and seventy-seven persons were put to death for denying the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. The ma- jority of the victims were humble artisans and husbandmen. It was Mary's intention and belief that the heretics sent to the stake would furnish a terrible warning to the Protestants and tend to check the spread of the new teachings, but Catholicism was not promoted ; on the contrary, doubters were only convinced