chancellor of both Oxford and Cambridge universities in 1555 and 1555/1556 respectively. As well as his religious duties, he was in effect the Queen's chief minister and adviser. Many former enemies, including Cranmer, signed recantations affirming their religious belief in transubstantiation and papal supremacy. Despite this, which should have absolved them under Mary's own Revival of the Heresy Acts, the Queen could not forget their responsibility for the annulment of her mother's marriage. In 1555, Queen Mary began permitting the burning of Protestants for heresy, and some 220 men and 60 women were executed before her death in 1558. These persecutions contributed to the ultimate victory of the English Reformation, though Pole's involvement in these heresy trials is disputed. Pole was in failing health during the worst period of persecution, and there is some evidence that he favoured a more lenient approach: "Three condemned heretics from Bonner's diocese were pardoned on an appeal to him; he merely enjoined a penance and gave them absolution." As the reign wore on, an increasing number of people turned against Mary and her government, and some people who had been indifferent to the English Reformation began turning against Catholicism. Writings such as John Foxe's 1568 Book of Martyrs, which emphasised the sufferings of the reformers under Mary, helped shape popular opinion against Catholicism in England for generations. Despite being a lifelong devout Catholic, Pole had a dispute with Pope Paul IV. Elected in 1555, Paul IV had a distaste for Catholic humanism and men like Pole who pushed a softer version of Catholicism to win over Protestants, as well as being fiercely anti-Spanish and against Mary's marriage to Philip II of Spain and heavily against Pole's support for it. Because of this disagreement Paul first cancelled Pole's legatine authority, and then sought to recall Pole to Rome to face investigation for heresy in his early writings. Mary refused to send Pole to Rome, yet accepted his suspension from office. Pole died in London, during an influenza epidemic, on 17 November 1558, at about 7:00 pm, nearly 12 hours after Queen Mary's death. He was buried on the north side of the Corona at Canterbury Cathedral. Author Pole was the author of De Concilio and of treatises on the authority of the pope and the Anglican Reformation of England, and of many important letters, full of interest for the history of the time, edited by