Editing Elizabethan era (section)

==Distinctions==
England in this era had some positive aspects that set it apart from contemporaneous continental European societies. Torture was rare, since the English legal system reserved torture only for capital crimes like treason<ref>George Macaulay Trevelyan (1949) ''England Under the Stuarts,'' p. 25.</ref>—though forms of corporal punishment, some of them extreme, were practised. The [[Witchcraft Acts|persecution of witches]] began in 1563, and hundreds were executed, although there was nothing like the frenzy on the Continent.<ref>With over 5% of Europe's population in 1600, England executed only 1% of the 40,000 witches killed in the period 1400–1800. {{cite journal|author= William Monter|title=Re-contextualizing British Witchcraft|journal=Journal of Interdisciplinary History|volume=35 |issue=1 |year=2004|pages=105–111 (106)|url=http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_interdisciplinary_history/v035/35.1monter.html|doi= 10.1162/002219504323091252 |s2cid=143951415}}</ref> Mary had tried her hand at an aggressive anti-Protestant Inquisition and was hated for it; it was not to be repeated.<ref>{{cite journal|author= John Edwards|title=A Spanish Inquisition? The Repression of Protestantism under Mary Tudor|journal=Reformation and Renaissance Review|year=2000|volume=4|page=62}}</ref> Nevertheless, more Catholics were persecuted, exiled, and burned alive than under Queen Mary.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Rafael E. Tarrago|title=Bloody Bess: The Persecution of Catholics in Elizabethan England.|journal= Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture|year=2004|volume=7|pages=117–133|doi=10.1353/log.2004.0010|s2cid=170503389}}</ref><ref name="B. Black, 1959 pp. 166">J. B. Black, ''The Reign of Elizabeth: 1558–1603'' (2nd ed. 1959) pp. 166–88</ref>