ought to lay violent handes. Well, I see þe kyng lacketh good counsaile. Well, said the Earle, whē I was sworne Warden of the Marches, you your selfe told me, that I might, with my staffe, arrest all men, vnder the degree of a kyng, and now I am more stronger, for I haue a cōmission so to do, whiche you haue sene. The Cardinall at lēgth obeyed, and was kept in a priuye chamber, and his goodes seased, and his officers discharged, and his Phisiciā, called Doctor Augustine, was likewise arrested, and brought to the Tower by Syr Walter Welshe, one of the kynges chamber. The vi. day of Nouember hee was conueyed from Cawod, to Sheffeld Castle, and there deliuered to þe Earle of Shrewsburies kepyng, till the kynges pleasure were knowen. Of this attachement was much commonyng amongest the common people, wherefore many were glad, for hee was not in the fauour of the comminaltie.
[Back to Top]MarginaliaThe Cardinall brought vp toward London.When the Cardinal was thus arrested, the king sent Syr William Kingston, Knight, Captaine of the Garde and Constastle of the Tower of London, with certayne yomen of the Garde, to Sheffeld, to fetch the Cardinal to the Tower. When the Cardinall saw the Captain of the Garde, he was sore astonied and shortly became sicke, for then he perceiued some great trouble toward him, MarginaliaThe Cardinall poysoneth him selfe.and for that cause, men sayd that hee willyngly tooke so much quantitie of a strong purgatiō, that his nature was not able to beare it. Also the matter that came from hym was so blacke, that the steining therof, could not be gotten out of hys blanckets by any meanes. But Syr William Kingston comforted hym, and by easie iorneys hee brought him to the Abbey of Leycester, the. xxvij. day of Nouember, where, for very feblenes of nature, caused by purgations and vomities, he dyed the second night folowyng, and in the same Abbey lyeth buryed.
[Back to Top]It is testified by one, yet beyng a lyue, in whose armes the sayd Cardinall dyed, that his body beyng dead, was blacke as pitch, also was so heauy, þt vi. could scarse beare it. Futhermore, it did so stinke aboue the ground, þt they were cōstreyned to hasten the buriall therof in the night season, before it was day. At the which buriall, such a tempest, with such a stinche there arose, that all the torches went out, and so he was throwen into the tombe, and there was layd.
[Back to Top]MarginaliaThe pride of the Cardinall.By the ambitious pride and excessiue worldly wealth of this one Cardinal, all men may easely vnderstand and iudge what the state and condition of all the rest of the same order (whom we call spirituall men) were in those dayes, aswell in all other places of Christendome, as especially here in England, where as the princely possessions and great pride of the Clergye did not onely farre passe and excede the common measure and order of subiectes, but also surmounted ouer kynges & princes and all other estates, as may well appeare by hys doynges and order of his story aboue described.
[Back to Top]Amongest other Actes of the foresayd Cardinall, this is not to be forgotten, that he founded a new Colledge in Oxforde, for the furniture wherof, he had gathered together all the best learned he could heare of, amongest whiche nomber were these: Clarke, Tindall, Sommer, Frith, and Tauerner, with other moe: which holdyng in assemble together in the Colledge, were accompted to bee heretickes (as they called them) and thereupon were cast into a prison of the Colledge, where saltfishe laye, through the stinke wherof, the most parte of them were infected, MarginaliaClarke dyed in the Cardinalls Colledge in prison.and the sayd Clarke being a tender young man, and the most singular in learnyng amongest thē all, dyed in the sayd prison, and other in other places in the towne, also of the same infection deceased.
[Back to Top]And thus hauyng deteined the reader enough, or rather to much, with this vainglorious Cardinall, now we will reduce our story agayne to other more frutefull matter, and as the order of tyme requireth, first begynnyng with M. Humfrey Mummuth a vertuous and a good Aldermā of London, who in the tyme of the said Cardinall, was troubled, as in the story here foloweth.
[Back to Top]The principal source for this section is a letter from Humphrey Monmouth to the Privy Council, written on 19 May 1528, found in Foxe's papers (British Library, Harleian MS 425 fo. 10 ff; transcription in John Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials, Relating Chiefly to Religion and the Reformation of it (Oxford, 1822), vol. I part ii, pp. 363-8). Foxe abbreviates this text to extract this narrative from it. In the process, he suppresses Monmouth's claim to have burned all his suspected books and his correspondence with Tyndale. He also suppresses Monmouth's fulsome profession of Catholic orthodoxy in that letter, including a reference to pardons he had received on a pilgrimage to Rome and his earnestly pious statement of trust 'in God I received at Easter last past'. Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials I/ii, pp. 366-7.Alec Ryrie
[Back to Top]MarginaliaThe story of Humfrey Mummuth.MAister Humfrey Mummuth was a right godly and sincere Alderman of London, who in the dayes of Cardinall Wolsey, was troubled and put in the Tower, for the Gospell of Christ, and for maynteining them that fauoured the same.
MarginaliaArticles ministred agaynst Humfrey Mummuth, by Byshop Stokesley.Stokesley then Bishop of London, ministred articles vnto him, to the nūber of xxiiij. as for adheryng to Luther and his opinions: for hauyng & readyng hereticall bookes and treatises: for geuyng exhibition to William Tyndall, Roy, and such other: for helpyng them ouer the sea to Luther: for ministryng priuy helpe to translate, as well the Testament, as other bookes into Englishe: for eatyng flesh in the Lent: for affirmyng fayth onely to iustifie: for derogatyng from mens constitutions: for not praying to Saintes: not allowing pilgrimage: auricular confession: the Popes pardons: briefly, for being an aduauncer of all Martin Luthers opinions. &c.
[Back to Top]He being of these articles examined & cast in þe Tower, at length was cōpelled to make his sute or purgation, writyng to the foresayd Cardinall, then Lord Chauncellour, and the whole Counsaile, out of the Tower. In the contentes wherof he aunswered to the criminous accusation of them, which charged him with certaine bookes, receaued frō beyond the sea: Also for his acquaintaunce with M. Tindall. MarginaliaThe purgation and aunswere of Humfrey Mummuth to the articles.Wherunto he sayd, that hee denyed not but that. iiij. yeares then past
In fact in the latter part of 1523. Tyndale left Monmouth's house for the Continent in or around April 1524.
And as touchyng his bookes, as Enchiridion,
Erasmus' Enchiridion Militis Christiani (Handbook of a Christian Soldier), first published in 1504, republished with a new prefatory letter in 1518 and thereafter an enormous publishing success. It is a text of polemical but ultimately orthodox Catholic humanist piety. Monmouth's original letter makes it plain that his copy was of the English translation prepared by Tyndale himself, who left it in Monmouth's custody. He owned at least two copies, although claimed in 1528 that he no longer had either of them. The translation is presumed lost, although it is possible that the first printed English edition of 1533 is, or is based on, Tyndale's translation. Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials, I/ii, p. 365. The existence of a translation of the Enchiridion by Tyndale is independently attested in 1563, p. 514. See also Desiderius Erasmus, Enchiridion Militis Christiani: an English version, ed. Anne M. O'Donnell (Early English Text Society 282: Oxford, 1981), pp. xlix-liii.
[Back to Top]Monmouth described this as a handwritten book in English, 'an old book', and claimed that he could not remember how it came to be in his possession. It may be a Lollard text. Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials, I/ii, p. 365.
Luther's The Liberty of a Christian, first published in 1520: Luther's fullest early statement of his core doctrine of justification by faith alone. This too, Monmouth's letter makes plain, was a handwritten copy in English, making it the earliest known English translation of Luther. He was given it by 'one Arnold, a yong man that is gone into Spain'. Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials, I/ii, p. 365.
[Back to Top]Thus hee excusing him selfe, and moreouer complay-