1570 Edition | Book 11 | Page 1713 
MarginaliaAn. 1555. February.wonder at the hastines of the sodayne health, and shall say with them selues, hauing inward sorrow and mourning for very anguish of mynde: These are they whom wee sometyme had in derision and iested vpon: we fooles thought theyr liues to be very madnes, and their ende to be without honour, but loe how they are accompted among the children of God. The blessyng of God be with you all. &c.
CloseFoxe deleted a final paragraph from this letter: cf. Letters of the Martyrs, p. 195.
CloseFirst in Letters of the Martyrs, p. 205.
MarginaliaA letter of Laurence Saunders to his wife.GRace & comfort in Christ, Amē. Deare wife be mery in the mercies of our Christ, & ye also my deare frēds. Pray, pray for vs euery body. We be shortly to be dispatched hence vnto our good Christ, Amen, Amen. Wife I would you sent me my shirte which you know wherunto it is consecrated.MarginaliaHe writeth for his shirte wherin he should be burned. Let it be sowed downe on both the sides & not open. Oh my heauenly father looke vpon me in the face of thy Christ, or els I shall not be able to abide thy coūtenaunce: such is my filthines. He will do so, and therefore I will not be afraid what sinne, death, hell, and damnation can do against me. O wife alwayes remember the Lord. God blesse you, yea he will blesse thee good wife and thy pore boy also: onely cleaue thou vnto hym and he will geue thee all thinges. Pray, pray, pray.
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CloseThere is another letter, which Foxe did not print, from Saunders to Robert and John Glover (Letters of the Martyrs, pp. 206-07). The ties between Saunders and the Glover brothers casts light on the martyrdom of Joyce Lewes. Her road to her martyrdom began with her witnessing Saunders' execution and she would be supported on that journey by her friend and spiritual mentor, John Glover.
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CloseFirst in Letters of the Martyrs, pp. 207-08.
GRace and consolation in our sweete Sauiour Christ.
Oh my deare brethren whom I loue in the Lord, being loued of you also in the Lord, be mery and reioyce for me, now ready to go vp to that myne inheritaunce, which I my selfe in deede am most vnworthy of, but my deare Christ is worthy, who hath purchased the same for me with so deare a price. Make hast my deare brethren, to come vnto me, that we may bee mery, eo gaudio quod nemo tollet a nobis. i. with that ioy which no man shall take frō vs. Oh wretched synner that I am, not thankefull vnto this my father, who hath vouched me worthy to be a vessell vnto hys honour. But O Lorde, nowe accept my thankes, though they procede out of a not enough circumcised hart. Salute my good sisters your wiues, and good sisters feare the Lord. Salute al other that loue us in the truth. Gods blessing be with you alwaies, Amen. Euen now towardes the offeryng of a burnt sacrifice. O my Christ helpe, or els I perish. Laurence Saunders.
[Back to Top]After these godly letters of M. Saunders diuersly dispersed and sent abroad to diuers of the faythfull congregation of Christ, as is afore to be sene, now in the later end we will adioyne ij. other letters written not by M. Saunders the Martyr, but by M. Ed. Saunders the Iustice, his brother, sent to thys our Saunders in prison, although conteynyng no great matter worthy to be knowen, yet to thys intent that the reader may see in these ij. brethren so ioyned in nature, and so diuided in Religiō, the word of the Lord verified, truly saying: MarginaliaMath. 10.Brother shalbe agaynst brother &c. as by þe cōtentes of these two letters folowyng may appeare.
CloseEdward Saunders' letters are not in the Letters of the Martyrs, but first appear in 1570. How Foxe acquired them is mysterious; perhaps they came from a member of the Saunders family. These letters must be genuine; Edward Saunders, a staunch catholic, lived until 1576 and he would have had every incentive to impeach the letters if he had grounds for doing so.
[Back to Top]MarginaliaA letter of Iustice Saunders to Laurence Saunders his brother.AFter my most harty commendations, these ben to asserteine you that I haue spoken with M. Basset,
CloseThis is James Basset, Laurence Saunders' successor as prebend of Botevant (York). Bassett held the living from 27 April 1554, which indicates that this letter was written between that date and Saunders' execution on 8 February 1555. It was highly unusual for deprived clergy to draw their final year's profits from their livings (Bassett apparently made this point); undoubtedly Edward Saunders' good offices secured generous treatment for his brother.
[Back to Top]AS nature and brotherly loue with godly charity requireth,MarginaliaGreting with protestation. I send you by these letters (quantum licet) most harty cōmēdatiōs, being sory for your fault & your disobedient handling of your selfe towardes my Lord Chauncellor, who I assure you, mindeth your good and preseruation, if you can so consider and take it. I would be glad to know whether you haue not had wyth you of late some learned men to talke with you by my Lord Chaūcellors appointment, and how you can frame your selfe to reforme your errour in the opinion of the most blessed and our most comfortable Sacrament of the aultar: Wherein I assure you I was neuer in all my lyfe more better affected than I am at this present, vsing to my great comfort hearing of Masse,MarginaliaHe meaneth peraduenture, when the Sanctus is singing, for then the Organs pipe merely and that may geue some comfort. & somewhat before the sacring time, the meditation of S. Barnard, set forth in the thyrd leafe of this present booke. The accustomable vsing whereof I am fully professed vnto during my lyfe, and to geue more fayth vnto that confession of holy Barnard, then to Luther. &c. or Latimer. &c. for that the antiquity, the vniuersalitie of the open Church, and the consent of al holy Saintes and Doctors do confirme the same, assertening you that I haue bene earnestly moued in myne own conscience these. x. or. xij. dayes past, and also betwene God and my selfe, MarginaliaThe meditations of S. Bernard sent by Iustice Saunders to his brother.to moue you to the same, most earnestly desyring you, and as you tender my naturall, godly, or friendly loue towardes you, that you woulde read ouer this booke this holy tyme, at my request, although you haue already seene it, and let me know wherein you cannot satisfye your own conscience. Thus fare ye well for this time.
[Back to Top]By yours, from Seriants Inne. E. Saunders.
CloseThere are two striking features about the life and martyrdom of Hooper in the Rerum. The first is how little information Foxe has on the martyr's life before Edward VI's reign. There are only two sentences stating that Hooper studied at Oxford and was forced to flee due to the emnity of Dr Richard Smith and that he stayed in Basel until Edward VI's reign (Rerum, p. 279). Surprisingly neither Bullinger nor Zurich are mentioned. One can only conclude that Bullinger did not supply any information about Hooper while Foxe was in exile. (J. F. Mozley argues that Bullinger supplied Foxe with Hooper's writings which Foxe published in theRerum, [John Foxe, p. 125] but he supplies no evidence for this and, in the light of Bullinger's silence at this time on his friendship with Hooper, this must remain doubtful). Hooper's meteoric rise under Edward VI, his struggle with Cranmer and Ridley over vestments (the Rerum account is markedly more hostile to bishops in general than the Acts and Monuments versions would be), his arrest over this issue and release after a grudging capitulation are all recounted in the Rerum (pp. 279-81). The Rerum also contains the praise of Hooper as a bishop, the detailed description of his arrest and examinations, and the very detailed account of his journey to Gloucester and his execution, which would be reprinted without major changes in all the editions of theActs and Monuments. This is the work of Grindal's team and reflects their editorial priorities: detailed accounts, drawn from eyewitnesses, of the final journeys and deaths of themartyrs are very much a feature of the Rerum. (The accounts of Laurence Saunders and Rowland Taylor provide excellent examples of this).
[Back to Top]The 1563 edition provides little new material. Hooper's marriage is mentioned for the first time, but that is all that is added about his exile. Two interesting documents are added, both concerning the quarrel over vestments in Edward VI's reign: Edward VI's dispensation for Hooper to be ordained as bishop without wearing vestments and Ridley's later letter to Hooper holding out an olive branch on the subject. The first edition also adds an account of Hooper's degradation and a poem by Conrad Gesner memorializing Hooper.
[Back to Top]The 1570 edition saw the inclusion of much new detail on Hooper's early years and his friendship with Heinrich Bullinger. (The farewell to Bullinger and Hooper's prediction of his own martyrdom, now added for the first time, almost certainly came from Bullinger; it is possible that Henry Bull opened the floodgates for this information.) The Earl of Warwick's letter to Cranmer on behalf of Bullinger was also added in this edition. There was no change to this account in the second or third editions of the Acts and Monuments.
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CloseMaterial similar to the glosses of the previous section can be found in the margins of this section, although they also perhaps reflect what seems to be Foxe's sense that Hooper was a somewhat grander, more confident figure than Saunders (as in the gloss 'Discretion how ministers and preachers ought to behaue themselues' which comments on Hooper's austere manner, framing the point in terms of the difficulties this presented for those who sought spiritual comfort from Hooper). Thus there are glosses linking catholicism and insanity ('This Morgan shortly after fel into a phrensy, and madnes and dyed of the same') and pointing out the catholic reliance on 'force and extremitie' ('The popes religion standeth onely vpoon force and extremitie'). Hooper endures a somewhat more thoroughgoing examination than Saunders and, as a result, some glosses in this section fulfill a similar function to those found in the Oxford disputations section; thus Foxe takes Hooper's point that the Council of Nice ruled that no minister should be separated from his wife as proving that the Council permitted clerical marriage, a rather wider point ('The coūcel of Nice permitteth Priests mariage'); also 'Gardiner exhorteth M. Hooper to returne to the Popes church', (Gardiner says 'Catholique Church' in the text), 'Queene Mary will shew no mercy but to the Popes friendes' (the text says, 'the Queene would shew no mercy to the Popes enemies'). A repetition of the term 'care' in two glosses ('The diligent care of B. Hooper in his Dioces'; 'The care of M. Hooper in instructing his family') show how the marginalia could be used to make a point with economy and subtlety; in this that there was a profound analogy between Hooper's godly governance of his home and his concern for his pastoral flock, a point which made the catholic opposition to marriage appear all the more destructive and misguided. There are also some glosses which are badly positioned in editions after 1570.
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CloseFoxe is using rabbis as a prejorative term for catholic scholars. It suggests, at least to sixteenth-century Christians, a blind adherance to law and tradition, combined with an emnity to the gospel.
CloseThis is extremely unlikely. Hooper apparently left Oxford in 1519 and entered the Cistercian monastery at Cleve, Somerset. One of the commissioners in charge of suppressing Cleve was Sir Thomas Arundel, who visited the house in 1537. David Newcombe suggests that this was when Hooper entered Arundel's service. Newcombe also points out that Hooper was rector of Lidington, Wiltshire, from 1537 to 1550, a living which was in Arundel's gift. (Newcombe, pp. 12-18). Richard Rex has suggested that Hooper was a friar (Rex, p. 47); in the weight of Newcombe's evdence this seems lesslikely, but it still involves Hooper having left Oxford well before Richard Smith's heyday there.
[Back to Top]Winchester after long conference with M. Hoper iiij. or v. dayes together, when he at length perceaued that neither he could do that good, which he thought, to him, nor that he would take any good at his hand, accordyng to M. Arundels request, he sent home his seruaunt agayne, right well cōmendyng his learnyng and wytte, but yet bearyng in his brest a grudgyng stomacke agaynst M. Hoper still.
[Back to Top]It folowed not long after this (as malice is alwayes workyng mischief) that intelligēce was giuē to M. Hoper to prouide for him selfe, for daunger that was wor-