Marginalia1555. March.Who aunswered that they were not persuaded in their consciences to returne and abiure their opiniōs, wherunto they had subscribed. Within a while after they were all three (with Thomas Tomkyns, and William Hunter afore named) brought openly into the Consistory þe ix. day of February aforesaid, & there had þe same Articles propounded vnto thē, which were before propounded vnto the foresayd Thomas Tomkyns (as appeareth in the discourse of his hystory) and thereto also subscribed these wordes: I do so beleue.
[Back to Top]The Byshop also vsed certain talke vnto Iohn Laurence onely.MarginaliaTalke betwene Boner, and Iohn Laurence Priest. Wherunto he aunswered in this maner: That he was a priest, & was cōsecrated & made a priest about. xviij. yeares past, & that he was somtime a blacke FrierMarginaliaIohn Laurence somtymes a Fryer. professed: that also he was assured vnto a Maide, whō he entended to haue maried: And being again demaūded his opiniō, vpō þe Sacramēt, he said that it was a remēbraunce of Christes body, & that many haue ben deceaued in beleuyng þe true body of Christ to be in the Sacrament of the aultar, and that all such as do not beleue as he doth, do erre. After this talke & other fayre wordes and threatnynges, they were all of them commaunded to appeare agayne at afternoone.
[Back to Top]The accounts of the appearances of Pygot, Knight and Laurence before the Consistory Court of St Paul's as well as the articles put to them, together with their answers, are all taken from Bishop Bonner's records, probably from a court book which is now lost.
MarginaliaThe third and last appearaunce.AT the which houre they came thether agayne, and there, after þe accustomed maner, were exhorted to recant and reuoke their doctrine, and receaue þe fayth. To the which they constantly aunswered, they would not, but would sticke to that fayth that they had declared and subscribed vnto, for that they did beleue that it was no errour which they beleued, but that the contrary therof was very heresie. When the Byshop saw that neither his fayre flatterynges, nor yet his cruell threatnynges would preuayle: MarginaliaSteuen Knight, William Pigot, & Iohn Laurence, cōdemned.he gaue them seuerally their iudgementes. And because Iohn Laurence had bene one of their annoynted Priestes, he was by the Byshop there (accordyng to their order) solemnly disgraded:MarginaliaIohn Laurence disgraded. the maner wherof you may see in the hystory of Maister Hooper afore passed, pag. 1681. Their sentence of condemnation, and this degradation once ended, they wre committed vnto the custody of the Shriffes of London, who sent them vnto Newgate, where they remayned with ioy together, vntill they were caried downe into Essex, and there MarginaliaMarch. 28.
Steuen Knight burned at Mauldon. W. Pigot at Brayntrey.the xxviij. day of March the sayd Williā Pigot was burned at Brayntree, and Steuen Knight at Mauldon, who at the stake kneelyng vpon the ground sayd this prayer which here foloweth.
Judging from the number of surviving manuscript copies of this prayer and the fact that it made its way overseas where Foxe first printed in the Rerum (p. 423), it enjoyed considerable popularity among Marian protestants. The manuscript copies are: BL, Harley 416, fol. 17v; BL, Lansdowne 389, fos. 185v-186r and ECL 260, fol. 250r.
[Back to Top]MarginaliaA Godly prayer of Steuen Knight at his Martyrdome.O Lord Iesu Christ, for whose loue I leaue willingly this life, and desire rather the bitter death of his crosse wyth the losse of all earthly thinges, then to abyde the blasphemye of thy most holy name, or to obey men in breaking thy holye commaundement: thou seest O Lord, that where I might lyue in worldly wealth to worship a false God, and honour thine enemy, I chose rather the torment of this body, and the losse of this my lyfe, and haue counted all things but vile, dust & dung, that I might wyn thee: which death is dearer vnto me, then thousandes of gold and siluer. Such loue O Lorde, hast thou layd vp in my breast, that MarginaliaPsal. 42.I hunger for thee, as the Deere that is wounded desireth the soyle. Sende thy holy comforter O Lord, to ayde, comfort, and strengthen this weake peece of earth, which is empty of all strength of it self. Thou remēbrest O Lord, that I am but dust, & able to doo nothing that is good. Therfore O Lord, as of thine accustomed goodnes and loue, thou hast bydden mee to thys banket, and accompted me worthy to drinke of thine owne cup amongst thine elect: euen so geue me strength O Lord, agaynst this thine element: which as to my sight it is most irksome and terrible: so to my mynd, it may at thy commaundement (as an obedient seruaunt) bee swete and
[Back to Top]pleasaunt, that through the strength of thy holy spirite, I may paße through the rage of this fire into thy bosome, according to thy promise: and for this mortall, receiue and immortall, and for this corruptible, put on incorruption: MarginaliaMarke the spirite of this prayer, & compare it with the prayer of the Papistes at the sacrifice of their Masse.Accept this brent sacrifice and offering, O Lord, not for the sacrifice, but for thy deare sonnes sake my Sauiour, for whose testimony I offer this free will offering with all my heart and with all my soule. O heauenly father forgiue me my sinnes as I forgiue all the world. O swete sonne of God my Sauiour, spread thy winges ouer me. O blessed & holy ghost, through whose mercifull inspiration I am come hether, conduct me into euerlasting life. Lord into thy handes I cōmend my spirite, Amen.
[Back to Top]MarginaliaIoh. Laurence Martyr. March. 29.THe next day being the. xxix. day of this moneth, the sayd Iohn Laurence was brought to Colchester, & there being not able to go (for that aswell his legges were sore worne with his MarginaliaIoh. Laurence lamed wyth yrons in prisō.heauy yrons in the prison, as also his body weakned with euil keping) was borne to the fyre in a chayre, and so sittng, was in his constant fayth consumed wyth fyre.
[Back to Top]At the burning of this Laurēce, he sitting in the fire, the young children came about the fyre, and cryed (as well as young children could speake) saying: MarginaliaEx ore infantium. &c.Lord strengthen thy seruaunt, and keepe thy promise,
The Venetain ambassador reported on the sympathy of the crowd at Laurence's execution for the martyr (C.S.P. Venetian, VI, i, nos. 45 and 49).
In Foxe's presentation, Ferrar's sufferings under Mary are almost an anticlimax to what he endured in the reign of Edward VI. This emphasis is already apparent in the Rerum, where Foxe blames Ferrar's troubles solely on the malice of George Constantine and on the duke of Northumberland, who, Foxe maintained, hated Ferrar because he was favoured by the duke of Somerset. (These charges against Northumberland would not be repeated in any of the editions of the Acts and Monuments. This is undoubtedly due to the power and influence of Northumberland's two sons Ambrose and Robert, in Elizabeth's reign). According to Foxe, Ferrar was stripped of his bishopric and imprisoned in the Fleet until the beginning of Mary's reign. (This is demonstably inaccurate; see Brown, pp. 216-18). He remained in prison under Mary until the end of January 1555, when he was sentenced to death. He was taken to Carmarthen and burned, dying a slow death because the wood for the fire was taken from a bog and was wet. The account ends with an interesting physical description of Ferrar, describing him as short, stout and swarthy (Rerum, pp. 423-25). Unlike many detailed accounts in the Rerum, there are no documents. All of this information seems to have come from a person familiar with St David's (the burning suggests an eyewitness account) and sympathetic to Ferrar.
[Back to Top]It is reasonable to suppose that this person was responsible for the flood of information about Ferrar that washed over Foxe before the 1563 edition was printed. Except for the detail of Ferrar being burned with wet wood, nothing from the Rerum account was reprinted in 1563. The reason for this was that Foxe had an enormous cache of papers pertaining to Ferrar's case to work from. Someone had copied these papers (probably from Ferrar's records) and sent them to Foxe, presumably in an effort to vindicate the bishop. (BL, Harley 420 consists largely of the papers in this collection which Foxe did not print. They all are written in a single hand, indicating that they were copied and sent to Foxe). Foxe constructed his narrative of Ferrar in Edward VI's reign entirely from these documents. The same individual was probably also responsible for sending Foxe copies of the official documents on which Foxe based his account of Ferrar's examinations in Wales in 1555 and his degradation there. An eyewitness seems to have supplied Foxe with his account of Ferrar's examination by Gardiner.
[Back to Top]Whoever Foxe's sources for the Rerum and 1563 accounts were, they succeeded in making Foxe an ardent champion of Ferrar. Foxe's printing of thedocuments in Ferrar's case is not only detailed, but it is very partisan. Foxe printed the basic complaint which Ferrar's opponents made to the privy council, but he did not even mention a further complaint (BL, Harley 420, fol. 90r-v charging Ferrar with sedition) and an affadavit supporting it (BL, Harley 420, fol. 92r), as well as Ferrar's denial of the charge (BL, Harley 420, fol. 93r). Nor did Foxe print many of the depositions against Ferrar (BL, Harley 420, fos. 80r-89v and 95r-104v) or the depositions of 124 witnesses testifying against Ferrar (BL, Harley 420, fos. 111r-178r). Even more striking is the fact that he printed this detailed pro-Ferrar account at all; he could have simply omitted this unsavoury feud and focused on Ferrar's martyrdom under Mary. One of Ferrar's opponents was Thomas Young, the first Elizabethan archbishop of York, and this could only have increased the pressure on Foxe for silence. (One of Foxe's friends wrote to the martyrologist begging him not to discuss this aspect of Ferrar's history; the best that Foxe would do was not name Young while the archbishop was alive). Foxe seems to have been genuinely outraged at Ferrar's treatment by his canons; perhaps Foxe's friendship with John Parkhurst - Elizabeth's first bishop of Norwich and another prelate circled by sharks - influenced him. (Foxe would know about Parkhurst's troubles; he lived at Parkhurst's palace in Norwich from 1560 to 1562 and his family resided there until 1563).
[Back to Top]Except for details about Ferrar's death, all the information which Foxe would ever print on Ferrar was in the 1563 edition. In the 1570 edition all the documents pertaining to Ferrar's Edwardian ordeals were omitted except for two letters which Foxe moved to the end of his account of Ferrar. (In this edition, Foxe also erroneously declared that Bishop Goodrich of Ely was the recipient of these letters). Foxe replaced the deleted documents with a brief narrative of Ferrar's troubles under Edward VI. He also replaced the account of Ferrar's execution with a new version, obviously drawn from an eyewitness, which gave the precise date of Ferrar's death and the story that, in a demonstration of stoicism, the martyr did not move in the flames. The 1570 account of Ferrar was reprinted in the 1576 edition without change.
[Back to Top]But in the 1583 edition, Foxe restored all of the documents that had appeared in 1563 and were deleted afterwards. This appears to have been done without much care since the two letters Ferrar purportedly wrote to Goodrich were restored along with the other documents from the first edition but also printed at the end of the account, as they were in the 1570 edition. As result the letters are printed twice in 1583 (on pp. 1552-53 and 1555-56).
[Back to Top]The date is incorrectly given as 22 February in 1563.
There is a long section dealing with the stirring in Farrar's diocese under Edward. This precedes the account of Farrar's troubles under Mary and leads to a different balance in the glosses from the previous few martyrs. The many articles against Farrar are noted in the 1563 and 1583 editions only; readers are advised in 1570 and 1576 to consult a copy of 1563. The 1583 glosses seem to have been set from the 1563 version. In these glosses, Foxe occasionally uses terms supportive of Farrar, describing the charge of Praemunire against him as 'pretensed' ('Premunire pretended agaynst B. Farrar') and noting the 'crafty packing' of his opponents ('Crafty packing agaynst Farrar'). Stoical phrases such as 'stoutly standeth' are used, along with commendation of constancy ('B. Farrar stoutly stādeth vpon his truth'; 'B. Farrar standeth to his oth made to the K. agaynst the Pope'; 'A memorable example of constancie in this blessed B. & Martyr'). The familiar charge that Winchester once supported the royal supremacy is introduced when opportunity serves ('Winchesters periury touched'), and there is a repeat of the restrained drawing attention to an appeal to the cardinal ('B. Farrar appealeth from the B. of S. Dauids to the Cardinall'). There is a mistaken date in 1583 (March 32) which was correctly given as March 30 in 1570 and 1576.
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