1570 Edition | Book 11 | Page 2166 
Marginalia1556. Iuly.and to make him one among the elect that shalbe saued.
The morow they both remayned and kept house with no small grief of consciēce waytyng and lookyng with feare, whē to be sent for to the Bishop, rather thē offeryng their diligence to kepe the Byshops appointment, but God so wrought that when the tyme drew neare that they feared callyng forth, MarginaliaGods prouidence in sending away the Byshop.the bels ronge for the byshops departure out of the towne.
CloseBishop Hopton seems to have left Ipswich in considerable haste. Was he troubled by the resistance he encountered during his visitation?
CloseAlmost from the moment it was printed, the veracity of Foxe's account of this horrible episode was challenged. The reader seeking to understand both this episode, and the context in which it occurred, can do no better than consult D. M. Ogier, Reformation and Society in Guernsey (Woodbridge, Suffolk: 1996), esp. pp. 55-83.
[Back to Top]Foxe's basic account of this tragedy first appeared in the 1563 edition. It was based on the petition of Mathieu Cauches (the brother of Catherine Cauches) made to the privy council asking for the punishment of those who burned his sister and his nieces (see Cal. of State Papers Domestic Add. VI, p. 484). Someone on the privy council, probably William Cecil, supplied Foxe with a copy of this document.
[Back to Top]In 1567, the catholic polemicist Thomas Harding printed a brief but stinging attack on Foxe's account of the incident, which accused Foxe of lying and the three women who were executed as being immoral criminals who received a deserved punishment (Thomas Harding, The Reiondre to Mr Jewels replie against the sacrifice of the Masse [Louvain: 1567], STC 12761, fos. 184r-185v).
[Back to Top]In the 1570 edition, Foxe responded to this, first by adding additional documentation, which confirmed the accuracy of his first account. (It also enabled him to add the names of the martyred women and of Jacques Amy). Most of this documentation sprang from the successful efforts of Thomas Effart, a Guernsey jurat (one of twelve people who, under the baliff, formed Guernsey's royal court, which administered the internal affairs of the island) to secure a pardon for JacquesAmy and the other officials responsible for the burnings, and from the pardon itself. In response to Harding's claims that Massy was unmarried and her son illegitimate, Foxe obtained testimony from a Huguenot minister living in London who had conducted Massy's marriage. (This, by the way, is a good example of the ways in which catholic attacks on the first edition spurred Foxe on to greater research). Foxe then added a direct rebuttal of Harding's arguments.
[Back to Top]MarginaliaThe Martyrdome of iij. women with a young Infant, burnt in the Isle of Garnesey. MarginaliaIuly. 18.AMong all & singular hystories touched in this booke before, as there be many pitifull, diuers lamentable, some horrible and tragical: so is there none almost either in cruelty to be compared
CloseThis is a rare example of the language of a passage being less restrained in the 1570 edition than in the 1563 edition; this is another result of Foxe responding to Harding.
Katherine Cawches, the mother.
Guillemine Gilbert, the daughter.
Perrotine Massey, the other daughter.
An Infant, the sonne of Perrotine.
But before I come to the purpose of this story, it shalbe necessary, for the better explaning of the matter, to begyn first with the circumstances, whereupon the first originall & occasion dyd rise of this tragicall cruelty. The case was this.
The xxvij. day of May, an. 1556. in the Isle of Garnsey, which is a mēber of Englād, in a town there called S. Peters Port, was a noughty womā named Vincēt Gosset, who beyng euill disposed, went (the day aforesayd) to the house of one Nicolas le Conronney, dwellyng in the towne of the sayd S. Peters Porte, about x. of the clocke at night, and there takyng the key of the house (lying vnder the doore) entred into a chamber toward the streete, where she espyeng a cuppe of siluer within a cuphord, tooke it away, and so conueyed her selfe out of the house agayne. MarginaliaThe first occasion of the trouble of these women.Who immediatly after this fact done, (whether by counsell or by what occasiō els, I haue not to say) brought the sayd cup to one Perrotine Massey, an honest woman, dwellyng in the sayd towne, desiryng her to lend her. vj. d. vpon the same.
[Back to Top]Perrotine seyng the cup or goblet, and suspecting (as truth was) the same to be stollen, aunswered that she would not take it: yet neuertheles hauyng knowledge of the owner thereof, tooke it, to restore it agayne to whom it dyd appertayne, and to the ende she should not cary it to an other, gaue her then presently vj. d. Where moreouer is to be noted, that Thomas Effart sayth and testifieth,
CloseThis passage, added in 1570, is a good example of Foxe finding information which cleared the three executed women in Effart's attempt to secure a pardon for the officials who condemned them. In the 1563 edition, Foxe merely said that Conronney suspected Gosset; he did not say that Massy informed on Gosset to Conronney.
[Back to Top]The next day folowyng, the kynges officers beyng informed of the premisses by one MarginaliaNicho. Cary Constable, accuser.Nicolas Carye of the sayd towne Constable, assembled the Iustices there, to inquire and examine further, as well vpon that fact of Vincent Gosset, as vppon other griefes and thynges there amisse. So that after declaration made by the officers and the Constable before the Iustice, for that the sayd Constable did reporte to haue found certeine vessell of peuter in the house of the foresayd Perrotine Massey (who then dwelt with her mother Katherine Cawches, and her sister Guillemyne Guilbert) the which vessell dyd beare no marke, and especially for that there was a peuter dishe, wherof the name was scraped out, their bodyes vpon the same were attached, MarginaliaKatherine with her two daughters, imprisoned in the Castle.and put in prison, and their moueable goodes taken by Inuentory. Within a fewe dayes after these thinges done and past, these three sely
CloseI.e., innocent.
So the cause beyng thus debated, after the inquirie made by the kynges officers, MarginaliaThe three women quit of theft and dishonestie.they were found by their sayd neighbours not giltie of that they were charged with, but had liued alwayes as honest women among them: sauyng only that to the cōmaundementes of holy Church, they had not bene obedient. &c. Vppon this triall, and verdite of the neighbours, it was in fine adiudged, first that the sayd Vincent Gosset, beyng atteinted of felony and condemned for the same should be whipped, and after her eare being nayled to the Pillory should so be banished out of the Isle without further punishment. MarginaliaNew trouble agaynst the three women, for not cōming to the church.And as touchyng the other three women, the mother with her two daughters, for their not comming to the Church, they were returned prisoners agayne into the Castle the first of Iuly. And thus farre concernyng the true discourse of this matter, with all the circumstances and appurtenance of the same in euery poynt as the case stode, accordyng to the faithfull tenour & testimony of the Garnesey men written with their own handes both in the French & English toūg.
CloseFoxe added this passage in 1570; it was a response to Harding's attack and was intended to remind his readers and his critics that this account was based on documentary sources.
MAster Deane, and Iustices in your Court and iurisdiction, after all amiable recommēdations, pleaseth you to know that we are informed by the deposi-