1570 Edition | Book 3 | Page 232 
Vpon these answers receaued, Duke William, in the whyle that the messengers went and came: gathered his knightes, and prepared his nauye, and had the assent of the Lordes of his land to aide & assist him in his iourny. And ouer that sending vnto Rome to pope Alexander, concerning his title and viage in England: the pope confirmeth him in the same, MarginaliaThe pope sendeth a banner to Duke W. vpon bone viage into England.and sent vnto him a bāner, willing him to beare it in the ship, wherin him selfe shoulde sayle. Thus Duke William, beyng purueyed of all thinges concerning his iourny: sped him to the sea side, and tooke shipping at the hauen of S. Valery: where he taryed a long time, or he might haue a cōueniēt winde. For the which his soldiours murmured (saying) it was a woodnes, & a thing displeasing God, to desire to haue an other mans kingdome by strength, and namely whē God was agaynst it in sending contrary wynde. &c. MarginaliaDuke William lādeth at HastingsAt the last, the wynde shortly after came about, & they tooke shypping wyth a great companye, and landed at Hastinges in Sussex.
[Back to Top]MarginaliaThree causes why Duke William entred England.For three causes Duke William entred thys land, to subdue Harald. One was for that it was to him geuen by king Edward hys nephew. The second was to take wreake for the cruell murther of hys nephew Alfred, king Edwardes brother, and of the Normandes, which deede he ascribed chieflye to Harald. The third was, to reuenge the wrong done to Robert Archbishop of Canterbury, which was exiled by the meanes and labour of Harald, in the tyme of king Edward.
[Back to Top]Thus, whyle Harald was in the North: duke William made so good speede that he came to Londō before the kyng: out of whiche he was holden, till he had made good suretie, that he and his people should passe through the city wtout tarying: which promise he wel obseruing passed the bridge, & went ouer vnto Sussex. Frō whēce he sent a Monke vnto Haarld, and profered to hym three maner of wayes. MarginaliaThree conditions offered to Harold by Duke William.1. Eyther to render to hym the possession of the land and so to take it agayn of him, vnder tribute raigning vnder hym. 2. or els to abyde and stande to the Popes abitrement betwixt them both: or thirdlye to defend hys quarell in hys owne person agaynst the Duke, and they two onely to try the matter by dinte of sword, without any other bloudshedyng.
[Back to Top]But Harald refused all these offers, saying: it should be tryed by dinte of swordes, and not by one sworde. And so gathered his people, and ioyned battail with the Normandes in the place where afterwarde stoode the abbey of Battayle in Sussex. MarginaliaThe fyght betwene Harold, and Duke William.In the beginning of which fyght the english men kept them in good aray, lyke to vāquish the Normandes. Wherfore Duke William caused hys men to geue backe, as though they fled: wherby the englishmen followed faste and brake their araye. Thē the Normaines fiersly geuing a charge vpon thē, in conclusion obtayned the victyry, through the iust prouidence of God. Where kyng Harald, who before had murdred Alfrede þe true heyre of þe crowne, wt his cōpany of Normandes so cruelly: MarginaliaK Harold slayne.was now wounded of þe Normands, in the left eye wt an arrow, & therof incontinent dyed: although Gerard saith, he fled away to Chester & liued after þt a Monk in þe monastery of s. Iames. Which is not like, but rather þt he was there slaine after þt he had reigned ix. monethes, and was buried at Waltham (which proueth that he dyed not at Chester) and so was he þe last that raigned in Englād of the bloud of the Saxons: þe which continued (to recken from Hengistus his fyrst raygne in Kent) by the space of fiue hundred and 91. yeares. And if it be reckened from the yeares of the Westsaxones, then it endured, the space of. 565. yeares.
[Back to Top]MarginaliaThe consanguinitie betwene king Edward, and William conqueror.This William Duke, and kyng Edward: were by the fathers side, cosin germaines remoued. For Richard the fyrst of that name, which was the iij. duke of Normādy after Rollo: was father to duke Richard the second of that name: and brother of Emma, mother to kyng Edward. Which duke Richard þe secōd, was father to dukeRobert, this duke Williams father.
[Back to Top]Albeit in this matter, other some may gather otherwise, and better, perchaunce, yet if I maye saye what I thinke, verely I suppose, that there is no consanguinitie so much here the cause, why God of his vnknowē iudgementes suffred the Normandes thus to preuail: MarginaliaMurther iustly recompensed.as was rather the cruell murder of Alphrede, and of the innocēt Normandes, wrought by the cruell despite of Harald & the Englishmen, as is before declared. The which merciles murther, God hath here iustly in thys conquest recompensed.
[Back to Top]Now remayneth also to these forren affayres of kings & princes, to adde somthyng likewise, cōcerning þe cōtinuatiō of þe archbishops of Cant. beginning there wher we last left: MarginaliaArchbishops of Canterbury.that is wt Elpheg9, whom we declared a litle before to be stoned by the Danes at Grenewiche. After which Elphegus next succededed MarginaliaLiuingus.
Egelnothus.
Robertus.
Stigandus.Liningus, after hym Egelnothus also aboue mentioned. Then Robertus a Normande, a great doer (as is declared) about king Edward, and a faithful counsailer vnto him: but he abidde not long. After whome, Stigandus inuaded the see (as they report) by symony: beyng both Archbishop of Cant. bishop of Wint, and also abbot in an other place. Wherin he cōtinued a great space, gathering & heaping goods together, till at length duke William clapt hym in prison, and there kept hym: placyng in his roome, Lancfrācus a Lombard borne, of whom more shal folow (Christ willing) herafter to be declared.
MarginaliaThe decay of the church.¶ Although the church of Christ, and state of religion first founded and grounded by Christ and his Apostels, did not continually altogether remayne in his primatiue perfectiō, wherin it was fyrst instituted:
CloseHaving introduced so much additional, detailed and substantial material on the history of the Anglo-Saxon state and church in the 1570 edition of the martyrology, Foxe chose to use the end of the new 'book three' to offer a reinforcement of the implicit periodisation which had begun to emerge. Rather than the 'third age of the church' (or 'the latter age of the church') in which, with the accomplishment of the first millennium of Christian history, 'the fresh flowering blood of the church' began to 'faint, and strength to fail, oppressed with cold humours of worldly pomp, avarice, and tyranny; here now cometh in blind superstition, with cloaked hypocrisy, armed with rigorous laws, and cruel murdering of saints', Foxe now offered a more nuanced picture, in which the affairs of the world 'began from better to worse, to decrease & decline into much superstition & incōuenience: partly through the comming in of Mahumet, partly through the increase of wealth and riches, partly through the decrease of knowledge & diligence in such as should be the guides of Christes flocke: yet the infection & corruption of that time (though it were great) did not so abounde in such excessiue measure, as afterwarde in the other latter times nowe following, about the thousand yeares expired after Christ'. Having nuanced and historicised the more explicitly presented millennial determinism of the 1563 text, Foxe was all the more concerned, however, to let the overwhelming evidence that he presented do the work for him. Few stories relating to the history of the medieval papacy did it better than that of Pope Sylvester II, who became pope in succession to Gregory V in 999, the first French pope. The surviving chronicles were rich in apparently documented rumours of his being in league with the devil, and speculation concerning his Jewish ancestry. The subject is explored at greater length in [hyperlink here:] Thomas Freeman, '"St Peter Did not Do Thus": Papal History in the Acts and Monuments', the prefatory essay to this edition. As we demonstrate there, despite the impressive range of sources that Foxe appears to display, the material had essentially come from Matthias Flacius' Catalogus testium veritatis (1556) (pp. 230; 200) and from Bale's Catalogus, pp. 143; 145-159; 156-7.
[Back to Top]Interestingly, however, Foxe did not close the book at this point. As a last-minute addition to the book, he added to the 1570 edition the 'Oration of K. Edgar to the Cleargie'. Foxe strongly implies that the material had arrived in his hands just as his volume was going through the press ('…chaunced in the meane time to come to my handes…'). Foxe highlights what he saw as the particular significance of the text. It indicated the 'religious zeale and deuotion of kynges' (Foxe wanted, wherever possible, to lay the groundwork historical justifications for the English monarchy's determining role in the reformation). It documented the 'dissolute behauiour and wantonness of the clergie'. And it revealed the 'blynd ignoraunce and superstition of that tyme in both states: as wel ecclesiastical, as temporal' (thereby strengthening points which had emerged, albeit tangentially, in the preceding narrative). There is a clear indication, therefore, here that Foxe continued right up to the last moment to work on the early books of the martyrology in 1570. Where had the text come from? Our hypothesis currently is that the manuscript had been discovered, probably by someone in Archbishop Matthew Parker's household, and passed to Foxe, who placed it in the book where he could. The manuscript in question might well be Corpus Christ College, Cambridge MS 56. This is a compilation of statutes, charters and miscellanea, among which (at fol. 253) a manuscript described as 'Monitio Regis Edgari prelates et abbatibus' is listed, a text which lacks the end passage (in the way that Foxe's does). In John Joscelyn's list, this part of the manuscript is described as 'Edgarus Anglorum Rex habuit orationem', and it appears to have come into the archbishop's possession from John Twyne. T. Graham, and A. G. Watson, The recovery of the past in early Elizabethan England. Documernts by John Bale and John Joscelyn from the Circle of Matthew Parker, Cambridge Bibliographical Society Monograph, No. 13 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998) believe that the text had originally come from Ailred of Rievaulx, De genealogia regum Anglorum (Ælfred of Rievaulx: The Historical Works (Kalamazoo, 2005), ch. 17, pp. 98-102., ch. 17, pp. 98-102). It had been printed in the first edition of Matthew Parker's De Antiquitate Britannicae Ecclesiae (1569), pp. 57-8. Historians now incline to the view that its ascription to Edgar is false.
[Back to Top]Foxe ended the book with a continuation of the ordo successionis of the archbishopric of Canterbury from the time of King Edgar through to the Norman Conquest. The table complements earlier ordines in book 3. It was possibly derived from William of Malmesbury's Gesta Pontificium (N.E.S.A. Hamilton, ed. William of Malmesbury. Willemesbiriensis Momnachi De Gestis pontificium Anglorum [,,,] [London: Rolls Series, 1870]., book 1, chs 12-24) although it is likely that this was also connected to research undertaken in Parker's household for the publication of the De Antiquitate.
[Back to Top]Matt Phillpott and Mark Greengrass
University of Sheffield
MarginaliaSiluester the second a foule sorcerer.This Siluester was a Sorcerer, which after the sort of them, that worke by familiars (as they call them) and by coniuration, compacted with the deuill, to bee made pope. And so he was (through the operatiō of Satan) accordyng to his request. Which thing some histories say he did greatly repente before his death. But for a more ample declaration hereof, I will bring in the wordes of Ioannes Stella. a Venetian, translated from latin into english, concerning the sayd Siluester: to the entent that our inchaūters and sorcerers now a daies (wherof there be to many in england) may the better through his exāple be admonished. The wordes of Stella be these, agreyng also with the narration of Benno, Platina and many other. MarginaliaIoannes Stella.
Platina.
Petrius Premōstratensis.
Nauclerus.
Antoninus.
Robertus Barnus.
Ioannes Baleus.Syluester the second of that name, beyng pope, and a french man, called Gibertus: sate in his papacye foure yeares, one moneth and. viij. dayes. He entred into his papacy, through wicked and vnlawful meanes: who from hys youth beyng a monke, and leauyng his monastery, gaue himselfe wholy to the deuil, to obtayne that which he required. And first commyng to Hispalis a city in Spayne, there applied hys booke and profited there in so much, that he was made doctor, hauyng amongst hys auditours, Ottho the Emperours sonne, and Robert the French king, Lotharius archbishop of Senon, with dyuers other mo. By whose aduauncemēt he was promoted, first bishop of Rheme, afterward bishop of Rauēna,