When King Henry VIII declared himself to be the head of the Catholic Church in England he did not merely establish an office from which he could issue dictates to the bishops. He turned all faithful Catholics in the land into treasonous criminals to be hunted down and made to apostasize or else suffer imprisonment, loss of property and even death. The Catholic Church was to be extirpated in England and later, as the English turned their attention to Ireland, the policy was extended there. This period of "reformation" and persecution produced great saints for the Church. It fostered the cause of Irish nationalism. It is also the root cause of the disintegration of what remains of Henry's church today.  Every American and Canadian Catholic home school child should know and appreciate this important part of his heritage.  A History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland was written between 1824 and 1827 by an English Protestant. It relates the seldom told true story of the Protestant Revolt during the 16th century and its disasterous consequences in the lives of the English people.

The story of St. Margaret Clitherow, The Pearl of York, is one of bravery and faithfulness to Christ. It is also a story of unspeakable cruelty which one can hardly believe possible from "civilized" men.   Martyrs of the English Reformation includes St. Margaret's story as well as many others. "If anything can inspire young Catholics to understand and uphold the traditional Catholic Faith, it will be these courageous men and women who loved that Faith more than life itself." (Michael Davies).  The persecution of priests was particularly vicious.  Edmund Campion, Hero of God's Underground is a Vision book which tells the life of one of the most famous of the English martyr priests. To accomplish more than just a glimpse of a particular martyr's life there is a small book packed with information: Robert Southwell, A Unit Study on English History, Poetry and the Catholic Faith.  Robert Southwell, a Jesuit martyr, is the focus of this study which combines (as Southwell did in his life) the history of his times, his poetry and the tenets of his and our Faith. This inexpensive but little publicized book is largely an unrecognized gem.

A proabortion governor of New York liked to be photographed sitting at his desk with a large portrait of St. Thomas More behind him. This must have been a second martyrdom for the saint who forfeited his life rather than deny his Faith.  His story is told in The King's Good Servant But God's First: The Life and Writings of St. Thomas More. This is a high school level book but his story is told in a simpler fashion in the Vision book St. Thomas More.  A  Man for All Seasons  is an Academy Award presentation of his story available on DVD.

In Swords Around the Cross: The Nine Year's War, Ireland's Defense of the Faith and Fatherland  the president of Christendom College tells the story of the Irish clansmen's efforts to unify and to ward off the conquest and the protestantization of Ireland.  The same saga is told in juvenile novel form in the Bethlehem Book, Red Hugh, Prince of Donegal.