No kidding, though if one looks for a non-fictional hero who practiced religious tolerance in that day and age, one has to wait at least two more generations and for Henri "Paris is worth a mass" Quatre to show up, surely? (Elizabeth I. wasn't a fanatic herself, but she did licence persecution in the later part of her reign. Isn't there a famous Cecil quote to the effect that "state could never be in safety where there was a toleration of two religions"?) Because on either side of the religious divide, you get fervour and a demonization of the respective other side, and, when the people in question get into a position of power, sooner or later persecution. If Mary Tudor had never reigned, she might be hailed as some sort of heroine for freedom of conscience today due to some spirited things she said in brother Edward's reign re: her own freedom to worship the way she wanted. As it is...

We have a big Martin Luther anniversary coming up next year and the essays already written all have to grapple with the fact hat the hero of the Reformation and founder of the dominant Protestant faith in Germany was also a vicious antisemite who wrote extensively on the subject. Btw, to connect him to the original subject, he absolutely loved duking it out via pamphlets with Thomas More, especially since he didn't accept Henry VIII. had written the original "Assertio septem sacramentorum adversus Martinum Lutherum" because he thought "Junker Heinz" wasn't intellectually capable, it had had to ghost written by Sir Thomas.