1570 Edition | Book 3 | Page 222 
Marginalia977.greater part both of the nobles and commons, iudged the priestes to haue great wrong, & sought by al meanes possible, to bring them agayne to their olde possessions & dignities. Iornalensis here maketh rehersal of an image of the crucifixe or a roode standing vpō the frater wall, where the councel was holden. To this roode Dunstan requyreth them all to pray, beyng belike not ignoraunt of some spirituall prouision before hand. MarginaliaA vayne miracle of Dunstanes roode that spake.In the middes of their prayer the roode, or els some blynde monke behynde him in a trunke through the walle, is reported to speake these wordes: Absit hoc vt fiat, absit hoc vit fiat: iudicatis bene, mutaretis non bene. In remembrance wherof these verses were written vnder the roodes feete.
[Back to Top]Humano more crux præsens ædidit ore.
Cœlitus affata, quæ perspicis hic subarata.
Absit vt hoc fiat, & cætera tunc memorata.
MarginaliaHere lacke a Thomas Cromwell to trye out false iugling.Of this Dunstanicall, or rather Satanicall oracle, Henricus maketh no mention, nor Ranulphus: nor yet Houedenus, nor Fabian in their histories. Gulielmus in his booke De Regibus, reporteth it, but by hearesaye, in these wordes saying: Aliæ litteræ docent. &c. Wherfore the lesse it seemeth to be of credite. Albeit if it wer of credible truth, yet it proueth in thys matter nothing els, but Dunstane to be a Sorcerer, as Polydorus Virgilius also hymselfe seemeth to smell somthing in this matter.
[Back to Top]Notwithstanding for al this, yet the strife ceased not. MarginaliaAn other assemble called at Calue.In somuch that a new assemble of the clergy and other, was appointed after: at a place called þe strete of Calue, where the councell was kept in an vpper loft. In thys councel many greuous complayntes were obiected (as Malmesberiensis sayth) agaynst Dunstan. MarginaliaDunstane an enemye to priestes wiues.But yet he kept his opinion, and would not remoue from þt whych he had begone to mayntayne. And whyle they were ther in great contention and argument which way shoulde be admitted and alowed, (if it be true, that in the stories is written) sodenly the ioyses of the loft fayled, MarginaliaA sodayne fall of the people at the councel of Calue.and the people with the nobles fell downe, so that certaine were slayne, and many hurt. But Dunstane (they say) onely, standing vpon a poast of the solare, which remayned vnbroken, escaped without daunger. Which thing, whether it so happened to portende before, the ruine of the realme and of the nobles (as Henrye Huntington doth expoūd it) which after ensued by the Danes: or whether it was so wrought by Dunstanes sorcerye (as was not vnpossible:) or whether it wer a thing but fayned of the Monkish writers, and not true: MarginaliaHenricus. lib. 5.
Guliel.
Ranulph.
Iornalēsis.
Fabian.al this I leaue to the readers, to thincke therein what them liketh. The stories say further, that vpon this the matter ceased, and Dunstan had all hys wyll.
These thinges thus done at Calue, it happened not long after the same: that king Edward, whom the writers describe to be a vertuous and a meeke prince, much pitifull and beneficiall to the poore: about the. 4. yeare of hys raygne, came vpon a season from hunting in the forest alone, wythout the companye of his seruauntes, to the place in the west country, where Alfrith hys mother, with her sonne Egelred did lye. MarginaliaThe horrible wickenes of the Quene the mother.When the Quene the mother was warned of hys comming by her men, anon she calleth to a seruaunt of hers, which was of her speciall trust, opening to him all her conceyued counsel, and shewyng hym in all poyntes how and what to doo for the accomplishing of her wycked porpose. Whych thing so done, she made towardes the king, and receaued hym wyth all courtesy, desyring hym to tarye that nyght. But he in lyke courtesy excused himselfe, and for speede desyred to see hys brother, and to drinke, vpō hys horse sittyng, the which was shortly brought.
[Back to Top]MarginaliaK. Edward traterouslie murthered by his step mother and her seruant.And whyle the cup was at his mouth, the seruant of the quene (before informed) strake him in the body with a lōg two edged dagger. After the which stroke the king tooke the horse with the spurres, & ran toward the way, where he supposed to meete with his company. But hebled so sore, that for fayntnes he fell from his horse, hys one foote being in the styrrup. By reasō wherof he was drawen of hys horse ouer fieldes and landes, till he came to a place named Coryfgate, MarginaliaKing Edward foūd dead and buryed, not knowen to be king.
Coref castle.where he was found dead. And for that, neither the maner of his death, nor yet he himselfe for the king was knowen: was buryed vnhonorably at the towne of Warrham, where the body remained the space of. iij. yeares, and then after was taken vp by Duke Alfere aboue mencioned: MarginaliaThe body of king Edward after. 3 yeares honourably taken vp and translated to Shaftesbury.and with pompe and honor accordingly, was remoued to the Minster of Shaftesbury, and there bestowed in the place called Edwardstow. Many tales run (mo perchaunce then be true) concerning the finding and taking vp of his bodye: whych our most common histories ascribe to miracles & great wonders wrought about the place where the king was buryed. At first how a poore woman borne blinde, receued her sight by the meanes of S. Edward, there where he did lie. Also how a piller of fyre frō heauē, descended ouer the place of hys buryal. Then howe the foresayde Quene Alfryth taking her horse to go to the place, was stopped by the way: that neither her horse coulde be dryuen by any meanes, nor she her selfe on foote was able to aproche neare to the place where the corps of S. Edward was. MarginaliaTwo Nonries founded vpon murther.Furthermore, how the sayd Quene in repētance of her facte, afterward builded two Nunries, one at Amesbury by Salesburye: the other at Werewelle, where she kept her selfe in continual repentaunce al the dayes of her lyfe. And thus as ye haue heard, was thys vertuous yong king Edward murthered, when he had raigned almost. iiij. yeares, leauing no issue behind him: MarginaliaAn. 979wherby the rule of the land fel to Egelredus his brother
MarginaliaThree Edwards kings before the conquest.¶ But here by the way is to be noted (vpon the name of this Edward) that ther were three Edwardes before the conquest. The first was king Edwarde the Senior. The second, king Edward the martyr, which was thys king. The third was king Edward called the confessor, wherof hereafter shall follow (Christ wylling) to be declared.
[Back to Top]MarginaliaContinuation of the romishe bishops or popes.In the order and course of the Romane Bishops, mētiō was made last of Agapetus the second. pag. 194.Edgar.
CloseFoxe's source for this increasingly and cumulatively negative account of 'the rages & tumults of the Romish church' is taken from Bale's Catalogus, pp. 131-139, with some signs of additional confirmation filleted in from other sources, possibly from Matthew Parker's library.
CloseFoxe had scarcely done more in the 1563 edition of his martyrology than point to the significance of this period as one in which 'shepheardes and watchmen became wicked Wolues, Christes frendes chaunged into ennemies. To be shorte here came in the time,that the reuelation speaketh of, whan Sathanas, the old serpent, beyng tied vp for a thousand yere, was losed for a certaine space' (1563, pp. 10-11). Foxe thus linked this, the 'third age' of the church, with the accomplishment of the first millennium of Christian history and the prediction contained in Revelation, 20: 6-8. By the 1570 edition, the turn of the first Christian millennium was treated in a more historicised and implicit fashion. Beneath Foxe's narrative there still lay the implication that there was a deeper significance to be attached to the 'greate miseries vpon this English nation' around the year 1000AD, exemplified by the successful Danish invasions, weak and ill-advised kings, and the divisions among the Anglo-Saxon nobility. Foxe was prepared, albeit with caution, to include in his narrative the ominous prophecy of Dunstan at the coronation of King Ethelred ('They should not be without bloudsheding & sword, til there came a people of an vnknown tongue, and should bring them into thraldome: Neither should that trespass be clensed without long vengeance, &c') and the sinister dream of Edward the Confessor ('God would geue this realme to the hande of others'). The reign of Edward the Confessor was treated as God's granting of brief respite to the kingdom before 'God of his vnknowen iudgementes suffred the Normandes thus to preuail' in the Norman Conquest'. Foxe no doubt wanted the reader to appreciate some of the implied parallels between the pious rule of Edward the Confessor, and the godly laws which he enacted, and that of Edward VI.
[Back to Top]Foxe's treatment of his sources at this point continued his practice, already well-established for Book Three in the 1570 edition of a scholarly bricolage from a relatively limited range of sources. It is often difficult to determine from which of the latter he chose to take his material although, where it is possible to do so, it is evident that he preferred the chronicles from lay, rather than from clerical, sources (Roger Howden; Fabian). Where expedient, he used his clerical sources (Henry Huntingdon; Ranulph Higden's Polychronicon; William of Malmesbury's Gesta Regum). More occasionally, but critically and with circumspection, he drew on Polydore Vergil's Historia Anglica. Foxe seems, however, to have struggled somewhat with the complexity of the narrative at this point, with his sources giving conflicting accounts in matters of detail which he found difficult to resolve with the resources at this disposal.
[Back to Top]Matthew Phillpott and Mark Greengrass
University of Sheffield