His apologists, including defenders of Catholicism in England, claim his actions were merely "official", and that "he had no control" over the fate of the accused "once they were declared to be irreclaimable heretics and handed over to the secular power; but he always strove by gentle suasion first to reconcile them to the Church"; the "Catholic Encyclopedia" estimates the number of persons executed as heretics in his jurisdiction as about 120, rather than 300. Many of his victims were forced upon him by the king and queen in Council, which at one point addressed a letter to Bonner on the express ground that he was not proceeding with sufficient severity. So completely had the state dominated the church that religious persecutions had become state persecutions, and Bonner was acting as an ecclesiastical sheriff in the most refractory district of the realm. Even John Foxe records instances in which Bonner failed to persecute those authorised for persecution.