1570 Edition | Book 8 | Page 1495 
CloseThese charges were used repeatedly in the proceedings of 1511-12; for an example, see Kent Heresy Proceedings, 1511-12, ed. Norman P. Tanner. Kent Records 26 (Maidstone, 1997), p. 34. Foxe is quoting the charges accurately.
MarginaliaTheir Articles.1 FIrst that the sacrament of the aulter was not the very body of Christ, but material bread.
2 That confession of sinnes ought not to be made to a Priest.
3 That there is no more power geuē of God to a priest, then to a lay man.
4 That the solemnisation of Matrimony is not necessary for the weale of mans soule.
5 That the sacrament of extreme vnction, called ancyling, is not profitable nor necessary for mans soule.
6 That pilgrimages to holy and deuout places be not necessary nor meritorious for mans soule.
7 That Images of Saintes, or of the Crucifixe, or of our Lady, are not to be worshipped.
8 That a man should pray to no Saynt, but onelye to God.
9 That holy water and holye bread is not better after the benediction made by the Priest. MarginaliaEx Regist. W. Warrhā.Ex verbis Regist. W. Warrham. Fol. 176. an. 1511.
MarginaliaThe doctrine of the Gospell in England before M. Luther beganne.By these articles and abiurations of the forenamed persons, thou hast to vnderstand, Christian Reader, what doctrine of religion was here styrring in this our realme of England before the time that the name of Martyn Luther was euer heard of here amōgst vs.
CloseFoxe is declaring one of his main purposes in supplying accounts of the Lollard martyrs: to demonstrate that there was a 'True Church' before Luther.
MarginaliaThree sortes of procedinges of the Papists agaynst the heretickes.AS touching þe penance & penaltie enioyned to these aforesayd, as also to all other such like, first here is to be noted, that the Catholicke fathers in their processes of hereticall prauitie, haue three diuers and distinct kindes of iudgements and proceedinges.
[Back to Top]For some they iudge to be burned, to thentent that other beyng brought into terrour by them, they might thereby more quietly hold vp their kingdome, & raigne as they list. MarginaliaThe processe of the Papists in condemning heretickes.And thus condemned they these. v. aforesayd, & notwithstanding they were wylling to submyt them selues to the bosome of the mother Churche, yet could they not be receaued, as by the wordes of the Register, and by the tenour of their Sentence aboue specified, may well appeare.
[Back to Top]And this sort of persons thus by them condemned, consisteth either in such as haue bene before abiured, & fallen agayne into relapse: or els such as stand constātlye in their doctrine, and refuse to abiure: either els such as they intende to make a terrour and example to all other, notwithstandyng that they be willing & ready to submitte them selues, and yet can not be receaued. And of this last sorte were these v. Martyrs last named. So was also Iohn Lambert, who submitting him selfe to the kyng, could not be accepted:
CloseSee 1563, p. 533; 1570, p. 1288; 1576, p. 1097 and 1583, p. 1123.
CloseI.e., innocent or guileless, not 'silly' or foolish, as in modern usage.
CloseFor Mekins see 1563, p. 613; 1570, p. 1376; 1576, p. 1174 and 1583, p. 1202. For the Guernsey martyrs see 1563, p. 1543; 1570, p. 2128; 1576, p. 1849 and 1583, p. 1943.
CloseI.e., an informer.
CloseFoxe's concern with family values is manifest throughout his work and, typically, he places most of the blame on the Catholic clergy.
MarginaliaThe punishment of them whom the Papistes condemne to perpetuall prison after their submission.To the second order belongeth that sorte of heretickes, whom these Papistes doe not condemn to death, but assigne them vnto Monasteries there to cōtinue, and to fast all their lyfe, In pane doloris & aqua angustiæ, that is, with bread of sorowe, and water of affliction: and that they should not remoue one myle out of the precinct of the sayd Monasterie, so long as they liued, without they were otherwise by the Archbishop him selfe or his successours dispensed withal. Albeit many tymes the sayd persons were so dispensed withall, that their penaunce of bread and water, was turned for them to go wollward
CloseI.e., the penitents had to wear woollen undergarments on certain designated days instead of the customary linen undergarments.
MarginaliaThe punishment of them which be inioyned penaunce after their recantatiō.The third kynde of heretickes were those whom these Prelates did iudge not to perpetuall prison, but onely inioyned them penaunce either to stande before the preacher, or els to beare a Fagot about the market, or in procession: or els to weare the picture of a Fagot brodered on their left sleues, without any cloke or gowne vpon the same: or els to kneele at the saying of certaine Masses: or to say so many Pater nosters, Aues, and Credes to such or such a Saint: or to go in pilgrimage to such or such a place: or els to beare a Fagot to the burnyng of some hereticke: either els to fast certaine Fridayes bread and water: Or if it were a womā , to weare no smocke on Fridaies, but to go wolward.
CloseI.e., the penitents had to wear woollen undergarments on certain designated days instead of the customary linen undergarments.
And thus much by the way out of the Register of W. Warrham aforesayd, like as also out of other Byshops Registers many mo such like matters & exāples might be collected, if either laysure would serue me to search, or if the largenes of this Volume would suffer all to be inserted that might be found. Howbeit, amongest many other thinges omitted, the story and Martyrdome of Lancelot and his felowes, is not to be forgottē. The story of whom with their names, is this.
[Back to Top]
CloseFoxe's source for this triple burning is unclear. The immediately preceding comment suggests that it comes from a now-lost episcopal register, but the imprecise and narrative nature of the tale he tells makes such a formulaic source unlikely. The account was first introduced in 1570 and remained unchanged thereafter.Three other sources record this event, although there are significant differences between each account. In a letter written early in 1541, Richard Hilles wrote that 'before Whitsuntide [1540] three persons were burned in the suburbs of London, in that part of the city belonging to the diocese of Winchester, because they denied transubstantiation, and had not received the sacrament at Easter'. Epistolae Tigurinae de rebus potissimum ad ecclesiae Anglicanae reformationem (Cambridge, 1848), p. 133 (Hastings Robinson (ed.), Original Letters relative to the English Reformation (Cambridge, 1846), p. 200). Charles Wriothesley's chronicle records that on 3 May 1540 three individuals were burned at Southwark for 'heresie against the sacrament of the aulter.' The place, date and offence all fit neatly with Hilles' account (Whitsun fell on 16 May in 1540). Wriothesley named one of the offenders as Maundevild, a French groom to the queen (that is, Anne of Cleves), described another of them as a painter, and gave no information at all about the third. Charles Wriothesley, A Chronicle of England during the Reigns of the Tudors, ed. William D. Hamilton, vol. I (Camden Society ns XI, 1875), p. 118. Perhaps most significantly for Foxe's account, his mentor John Bale wrote in 1544 that Bishop Gardiner had, at an unspecified point in the previous few years, 'broyled in saynct Georges felde beyonde Sothwarke one gyles a Ioynar with one of the quenes seruauntes and a paynter before fyue a clocke in the morninge, least the common people shuld haue knowen your lewde legerdemayne ouer theyr last confessions.' John Bale, The Epistle exhortatorye of an Englyshe Christiane (STC 1291: Antwerp, 1544), fos. 14v-15r.It is near-certain that this is the same event which Foxe describes. The discrepancy of dates between May 1540 and Foxe's 'about' 1539 can be disregarded, given Foxe's cavalier chronology. Foxe's insistence that his executions took place at St. Giles in the Fields, north of the Thames and in London diocese, is harder to reconcile with Hilles' and Wriothesley's account, but Bale's claim that it took place in St. George's field, by Southwark, suggests a neat solution in which a mistranscription by one of Foxe's researchers introduced the confusion. The names 'Lancelot' and 'Maundevild' are probably too different to be garbled versions of one another, but are perfectly plausible as a Frenchman's Christian name and surname, and Foxe agrees with Wriothesley and Bale that this man was in royal service. Foxe agrees with Wriothesley and Bale that the second man was a painter, with Bale that the third man was called Giles, and with Bale that the executions took place at the crack of dawn.Strikingly, either two or three of the victims were foreigners: Maundevild / Lancelot was French and John the painter Italian, and Giles Germane may have been German, as his surname suggests. This raises the possibility that all three were executed in the wake of the panic about foreign Anabaptists in 1538-9.Alec Ryrie
[Back to Top]MarginaliaLancelot, Iohn a Painter, Gyles Germane, Martyrs.ABout the yeare of our Lord. 1539. one Iohn a Painter, and Giles Germane were accused of heresie, and whilest they were in examination at London before the Byshop and other iudges, by chaunce there came in one of the kynges seruauntes named Lancelot, a very tall man, and of no lesse godly minde and disposition, then stronge and tall of body. This mā standyng by, semed by his countenaunce and gesture to fauour both the cause & the poore mē his frendes. Wherupon hee beyng apprehended, was examined and con-
[Back to Top]