thinketh I smell a counsaile to be taken, litle for their profites in tyme to come. But you must vnderstand, that it is not of a pure hart and for loue of the truth, but to aduēge them selues, and to eate the whores fleshe,MarginaliaEatyng the Whores fleshe, is to spoyle the Popes Church onely for the pray & spoile thereof. and to suck the mary of her bones. Wherfore cleaue fast to the rocke of the helpe of God, and commit the end of all thynges to him: and if God shall call you,MarginaliaWorldly wisedome so farre as it may serue to Gods glory, may be vsed. that you may then vse the wisedome of the worldly, as farre as you perceiue the glory of God may come therof, refuse it not: and euer among, thrust in, that the Scripture may be in the mother toung, and learnyng set vp in the vniuersities. But & if ought be required cōtrary to the glory of God and his Christ, then stand fast, and committe your selfe to God, and be not ouercome of mens persuasions, which happely shall say: we see no other way to bryng in the truth.

Brother Iacob, beloued in my hart, there lyueth not in whom I haue so good hope and trust, and in whom myne hert reioyseth and my soule comforteth her selfe, as in you: not the thousand part so much for your learnyng, and what other giftes els you haue,MarginaliaLow walking. as that you will creepe allow by the ground, and walke in those thynges that the conscience may feele, and not in the imaginatiōs of the brayne: in feare and not in boldnes: in open necessary thynges, and not to pronoūce or define of hyd secrets, or things that neither helpe or hynder whether they be so or no: in vnitie & not in seditious opiniōs: in so much that if you be sure you know, yet in thinges that may abyde laysure, you will deferre, or say (til other agree with you): me thinke the text requireth this sense or vnderstandyng: Yea and that if you be sure that your part be good, and an other hold the contrary, yet if it be a thing that maketh no matter, you will laugh and let it passe, and referre the thyng to other men, and sticke you stifly and stubburnely in earnest and necessary thynges. And I trust you be perswaded euen so of me.MarginaliaThe vpright handling in the translation of M. Tyndall For I call God to recorde agaynst the day we shall appeare before our Lord Iesus, to geue a reckenyng of our doynges, that I neuer altered one syllable of Gods word agaynst my conscience, nor would this day if all that is in the earth, whether it be pleasure, honour or riches, might be geuen me. Moreouer I take God to recorde to my conscience: that I desire of God to my selfe in this world, no more then that without whiche I can not keepe hys lawes.

Finally, if there were in me any gift that could helpe at hād, and ayde you if neede required: I promise you I would not be farre of, and commit the end to God: my soule is not faynt, though my body be wery. But God hath made me euill fauoured in this world, and without grace in the sight of men, specheles and rude, dull and slowe wytted: your part shalbe to supply that lacketh in me,MarginaliaA low harte maketh a mā hygh with god. remembryng, that as lowlynes of hart shall make you high with God, euen so meekenes of wordes shall make you sinke into the hartes of men.MarginaliaAuthority to the glory of age.
Meeknes to the glory of youth. Nature geueth age authoritie, but meekenes is the glory of youth, and geueth them honour. Aboundaunce of loue maketh me exceede in bablyng.

Syr as concernyng Purgatory, and many other thyngs, if you be demaunded, you may say, if you erre, the spiritualtie hath so led you, and that they haue taught you to beleue as you do. For they preached you all such thynges out of Gods word, and alledged a thousand textes, by reason of which textes you beleued as they taught you. But now you finde them lyers, and that the textes meane no such thyngs, and therfore you can beleue them no longer, but are as you were before they taught you, and beleue no such thyng:MarginaliaPurgatory hath no proofe by scripture. howbeit you are ready to beleue, if they haue any other way to proue it, for without profe you cā not beleue them, when you haue founde them with so many lyes. &c. If you perceyue wherein we may helpe, other in beyng still, or doyng somewhat, let vs haue word, and I will do myne vttermost.

My Lord of London hath a seruaunt called Iohn Tisen with a red beard, and a blacke reddishe head, and was once my scholler, he was sene in Antwerpe, but came not among the Englishmen: whether he is gone an Ambassadour secret, I wotte not.

The mighty God of Iacob be with you to supplant his enemyes, and geue you the fauour of Ioseph: and the wisedome, and the spirit of Stephen, be with your hart and with your mouth, and teach your lyppes what they shall say, and how to aunswere to all thynges. He is our God if we despayre in our selues, and trust in hym: and his is the glory. Amen.

William Tyndall.
¶ I hope our redemption is nygh.

¶ This letter was written. an. 1533. in the moneth of Ianuary. Which letter although it do pretend the name of Iacob, yet vnderstand (good Reader) that it was written in very deede to Iohn Frith, as is aboue tolde thee. For the more proofe and euidence whereof, read Frithes booke of the Sacrament, and there thou shalt finde a certayne place of this Epistle repeated worde for worde, beginning thus  

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See The whole workes of W. Tyndale, John Frith and Doct. Barnes, ed. John Foxe (London, 1572), STC 24436, p. 118.

¶ The death of the Lady Katherine and of Queene Anne.  

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Events of 1536-8

This section was added to, and changed significantly, between the 1563 and 1570 editions. The story of the 24 martyrs burned in Paris is attributed to a letter sent to Erasmus by Bartholomew Lani. However no such correspondent is mentioned by .S. Allen, Erasmi Epistolae and it does not appear in the later editions of Erasmus' correspondence either.

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The text of Henry's proclamation 'abolishing the usurped power' of the pope is replaced with the king's protestation against the proposed General Council. The proclamation had been printed in 1535 (A proclamation concerninge heresie (London: Thomas Berthelet - STC 7785) and would have been available to Foxe.

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Foxe's sources for the history of the early reformation in Scotland, which had already appeared in the Rerum (p. 121), are treated in Thomas S. Freeman, 'Fox, Winram and the Martyrs of the Scottish Reformation', Sixteenth Century Journal 27 (1996), pp. 23-46). Here, Freeman explains that Foxe had drawn on Bale's Catalogus and Boece's Scottorum Historia as his main sources. The latter had been translated into English by John Bellenden and published in Edinburgh around 1540. The stories of Queen Anne's last words and of the murder of Robert Packington are taken from Hall (fols 228 and 231).

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David Loades,Honorary Research Fellow,
University of Sheffield

Marginalia1536.
The death of Lady Katherine, Princesse Dowager. THe same yeare in the which W. Tyndall was burned, which was the yeare of our Lord 1536. in the beginning of the yeare, first dyed Lady Katherine Princes Dowager in the moneth of Ianuary.

After whom the same yeare also in the moneth of MayMarginaliaThe death of Queene Anne. next folowing, folowed the death also of Queene Anne, who had now bene maried to the kyng the space of iij. yeares. In certeine recordes thus we finde, that the kyng being in his Iustes at Grenewich, sodenly with a fewe persons, departed to Westmynster, and the nexte day after Queene Anne his wife was had to the Tower, with the Lord Rochford her brother, and certayne other: and the xix. day after was beheaded. The wordes of this worthy and Christian Ladye at her death were these:

MarginaliaThe wordes of Queene Anne at her death. Good Christē people, I am come hether to dye, for according to the lawe, and by the lawe I am iudged to death, and therfore I wil speake nothing against it. I am come hether to accuse no man nor to speake anything of that, wherof I am accused and condemned to dye, but I pray God saue the kyng, and send hym long to raigne ouer you, for a gentler, or a more mercifull Prince was there neuer: and to me he was euer a good, a gentle, and soueraigne Lord. And if any person will medle of my cause, I require them to iudge the best. And thus I take my leaue of the world, and of you all, and I hartely desire you all to pray for me. O Lord haue mercy on me. To God I commende my soule.MarginaliaQueene Anne beheaded. And so shee kneeled downe, saying: to Christ I commende my soule: Iesu receiue my soule: repeating the same diuers tymes, till at length the stroke was geuen, and her head was striken of.

MarginaliaCommendation of Queene Anne And this was the end of that godly Lady and Queene. Godly I call her, for sundry respectes, what soeuer the cause was, or quarell obiected agaynst her. Fyrst, her last wordes spoken at her death, declared no lesse her sincere fayth and trust in Christ, then did her quiet modestie vtter forth the goodnes of the cause and matter, what soeuer it was. Besides that, to such as wisely can iudge vpon cases occurrent, this also may seeme to geue a great clearing vnto her, that the kyng the thyrd day after was maryed in hys whites vnto an other. Certaine this was, that for the rare and singular gyftes of her mynde so well instructed, and geuen towarde God, with such a feruent desire vnto the truth, and setting forth of sincere Religion, ioyned wyth lyke gentlenes, modesty, and pitie toward all men, there hath not many such Queenes before her borne the Crowne of England. Principally this one commendation shee lefte behynde her, that duryng her lyfe, the Religion of Christ most happely floryshed, and had a ryght prosperous course.

MarginaliaThe mylde nature of Queene Anne in takyng admotion. Many thinges myght be written more of the manyfold vertues, and the quyet moderation of her mylde nature, how lowly she would beare, not onely to be admonished, but also of her owne accorde woulde require her Chapleynes playnly and freely to tell whatsoeuer they saw in her a misse. Also how bountifull shee was to the poore, passing not onely the common example of other Queenes, but also the reuenues almost of her estate:MarginaliaThe great almose of Queene Anne in so much that the almose which shee gaue in three quarters of a yeare, in distribution, is summed to the number of. xiiij. or xv. thousand poundes. Beside the great peece of money which her grace intended to impart into iiij. sundry quarters of the Realme, as for a stocke there to be employed to the behoofe of poore artificers and occupiers. Againe, what a zelous defender shee was of Christes Gospell, all the worlde doth know, and her actes doe and wyll declare to the worlds ende. Amongest which other her actes, this is one, that shee placed M. Hugh Latymer in the Byshopricke of Worceter, and also preferred Doctor Shaxton to hys Bishopricke, beyng then accompted a good man. Furthermore, what a true faith shee bare vnto the Lord, this one example may stand for many: for that when king Henry was with her at Wodstocke, and there being a frayde of an olde blynde prophesie, for the which neither he, nor other kinges before hym durst hunte in the sayde parke of