No, I have never heard of the Douay-Rheims Bible. Mainly the King James bible and some of the modern reworkings of the bible. At my desk I have the New International Version, NIV Study Bible from Zondervan Bibles. I don’t know anything about it’s reputation, but I like the fact that about 1/3rd of every page has explanations on the actual bible words above. Also the modern language makes it much easier to understand what is going on in some of the more difficult passages.
I don’t know the facts about the brutal treatment of priests and those who sheltered them, but I recently read a book about the 2,000 year history of London. In it was described the foul treatment of the French Hugonauts (sp) which caused many to flee to England when conditions got too bad. At any rate, a while ago I encountered a figure of 10,000 for the number of Mary’s victims. Do you have any figures on Henry VIII and Elizabeth’s victims?
The discrepancies arrive because of the definitions of who was killed and for what reasons. For instance, not only were Catholics killed by Elizabeth, but also Presbyterians, Anabaptists, and other dissenting Protestants who were not Anglican. Whether to count people killed in Ireland and Scotland affects the numbers; also whether people killed incident to rebellions are to be counted, whether they were armed rebels or unarmed civilians (hard to make a distinction, when so many of the rebels themselves are only armed with scythes, axes, pitchforks and kitchen knives.)
I wouldn't want to counting up the awful totals for either one of them.
In fact the total number of religiously-motivated executions under Elizabeth was in the same league the same as under her sister Mary, and the number of penalties of all kinds - death, imprisonment, fines, pillorying - was very much greater under Elizabeth --- who also ruled far longer. I think it's fair to say Mary is remembered as "Bloody Mary" not because she was more bloodthirsty than her half-sister who executed her, but because she was unsuccessful in establishing her monarchy; and history is told by the winners.
We can be grateful to say goodbye to those terrible days.