It appears that from this comment that Foxe is working from a manuscript, but actually he is simply paraphrasing what Bale said in A treatyse by Johan Lambert…, ed. John Bale (Wesel, 1548?), fo. 32v.

The following accounts all have one common theme: they deal with the (alleged) murders or executions of evangelicals or evangelical sympathisers by senior Henrician clerics. Thus what appear to be random, isolated cases are really - as Foxe presents them - part of the violent persecution inflicted by the False Church on the members of the True Church. In assigning all of these incidents to the year 1538, Foxe blatantly disregarded the dates given by his sources and even by himself in his earlier editions (Packington was murdered on 13 November 1536. Foxe gives the correct year for Packington's death in the Rerum (p. 146), but misdates it to 1537 in his first edition and to 1538 in subsequent editions. Similarly, the evidence would point to Collins being burned in July 1540 but Foxe dates it differently). This, one may readily deduce, was not the result of careless chronology, but stemmed from Foxe's desire to group these stories together in order to maximise their emotional impact.

Foxe rewrote these stories considerably in his first two editions. In the case of the story of Cowbridge, this was due to Nicholas Harpsfield's effective criticisms. In most cases, however, it was because Foxe started with very limited information and enhanced it through the contributions of individual informants. All of the stories appear in the Rerum. The killing of Robert Packington (Rerum, p. 146) was possibly inspired by John Bale's brief, but polemically laden, description of the crime in The image of both churches (Antwerp?, 1545), STC 1269.5, pp. 440-41; but its details are taken from Edward Hall, The unyon of the twoo noble andillustre families of Lancastre and York (London, 1550), STC 12723a, fo. 211v). William Collins (Rerum, pp. 180-81) was listed as a martyr by John Bale (The Epistle exhoratorye of an Englishe Christiane [Antwerp, 1544?], STC 1291, fo.13v), while More caustically dismissed him as a madman. Foxe probably obtained his gossipy and possibly inaccurate account of Collins from conversation with Bale. Foxe states (only in the Rerum (p. 139)) that he was an eye-witness to the execution of William Cowbridge; he is almost certainly his own source for the event, particularly since Bale and other evangelical writes never mentioned Cowbridge. Foxe's brief account account of Leyton closely follows that of Bale in the Epistle exhortatorye (fo. 13v). Bale didn't mention Puttedew but he still may have informed Foxe about him. Peke was merely listed as a martyr - 'peke of yppsewich' - in the Epistle exhortatorye (fo. 13r), but Bale may also have supplied Foxe with the only other fact that Foxe mentions about Peke in the Rerum: that Peke was executed for feeding communion wafers to a dog; see Rerum, pp. 117-118).

Although these accounts are full of corroborative detail (and the account of Peke's execution certainly looks accurate), the nature of Foxe's sources make them less than completely reliable. Foxe's allegations regarding the causes and people involved in Packington's murder are, to put it mildly, unsubstantiated (In the Rerum (p. 146), Foxe claimed that John Stokesley, the bishop of London, ordered the murder of Packington whilst in 1563, Foxe amended this to claim that John Incent, the dean of St. Paul's, ordered the murder. Foxe was almost certainly relating hot gossip about the murder yet the fact that there were rumours implicating Stokesley and Incent in Packington's murder does not, of course, make them true). Foxe provides one of several not completely compatible versions of the sufferings ofWilliam Collins. And his account of Cowbridge had to be abridged due to Nicholas Harpsfield's substantive criticisms.

Thomas S. Freeman

Packington was murdered on 13 November 1536. Foxe gives the correct year for Packington's death in the Rerum (p. 146), but misdates it to 1537 in his first edition and to 1538 in subsequent editions.

The details of Packington's murder was reported, mostly verbatim, from Hall's chronicle (Edward Hall, The unyon of twoo noble and illustre families of Lancastre and York [London, 1550], STC 12723a, fo. 231v). Foxe went further than Hall, however, in identifying the mastermind behind the murder. Where Hall simply blamed the clergy, Foxe accused first Bishop John Stokesley and subsequently Dean Incent of responsibility for the crime.

Hall stated that Packington went daily to Mass (Edward Hall, The unyon of twoo noble and illustre families of Lancastre and York [London, 1550], STC 12723a, fo. 231v); Foxe here rewrites this inconvenient passage.

In the Rerum (p. 146), Foxe claimed that John Stokesley, the bishop of London, ordered the murder of Packington. In 1563, Foxe amended this to claim that John Incent, the dean of St. Paul's, ordered the murder, adding the detail that the killer was an Italian. In neither case, should it be assumed that Foxe was inventing these details; instead he was almost certainly relating hot gossip about the murder. (Note Foxe's claim that he could produce witnesses in support of his story; see next comment). Yet the fact that there were rumours implicating Stokesley and Incent in Packington's murder does not, of course, make them true. (For the background to the murder see Peter Marshall, 'The Shooting of Robert Packington' in Religious Identities in Henry VIII's England (Aldershot, 2006), pp. 61-79).

The evidence would point to Collins being burned in July 1540 (A chronicle of England during the reigns of the Tudors, ed. W. D. Hamilton. Camden Society, new series 11 and 20 [2 vols., London, 1875 and 1877], I, p. 119).

The preceding passages were added to the account of Collins. Rather surprisingly, Harpsfield did not criticise Foxe for including Collins among the martyrs. Nevertheless, Foxe's remarks indicate his defensiveness on this subject after Harpsfield's attack on his account of Cowbridge.

There are several conflicting accounts of why William Collins was executed. Writing in 1529, Thomas More claimed that 'mad Collins…lasheth out Scripture in bedlam' (Dialogue Concerning Heresies, ed. Thomas Lawler, Germain Marc'hadour and Richard Marius, CWTM, 6 [2 vols., New Haven, CT, 1981], I, p. 433). This suggests at the very least that Collins's mental instability and engagement with evangelicalism were of longer duration than Foxe implies. Collins, however, was almost certainly in prison when More wrote. Later William Collins wrote to Sir Nicholas Hare and declared that he had been in prison for thirteen years, although he had never been convicted or charged with a crime. He denied that he was insane, thanked Hare for trying to free him and begged him to show the letter to the king (TNA SP 1/242, fo. 229r). Probably around the same time, Collins wrote to Cromwell, begging that he be released from the Marshalsea (TNA SP 1/144, fos. 154r-155r). These petitions must have been successful, because William Collins was a free man in 1536, when he was hauled before the Common Council and charged with shooting an arrow at the rood in St Margaret Pattens and for despising and railing against the sacraments (Corporation of London Record Office, Journal 13, fo. 476r). Richard Hilles, a London merchant and evangelical, reported to Heinrich Bullinger that sometime after 16 May (Whitsuntide) 1540 a 'crazed man' named Collins was burned and that his offence was purportedly shooting an arrow at a crucifix, declaring that the cross should be able to defend itself. (Hilles did not doubt that Collins committed this action, but his suspicion was that Hilles's real crime was denouncing certain nobles for exploiting their dependents). Hilles also reported that Collins seemed perfectly rational when he was imprisoned with the sacramentarian John Lambert and that he supplied Lambert with texts to use in his defence (Original Letters Relative to the English Reformation, ed. Hastings Robinson, Parker Society [2 vols., Cambridge, 1846-7], I, pp. 200-201). Finally Charles Wriothesley noted Collins, a 'sacramentary', was burned at Southwark on 7 July 1540 (A chronicle of England during the reigns of the Tudors, ed. W. D. Hamilton. Camden Society, new series 11 and 20 [2 vols., London, 1875 and 1877], I, p. 119).

Foxe is emphasising Cowbridge's alleged insanity as a fallback position after having badly embarrassed himself. In the Rerum, Foxe stated that he witnessed the burning of Cowbridge at Oxford in 1536 (actually 1538). In this narrative, Foxe claimed that Cowbridge was arrested and imprisoned in the Bocardo (the town prison of Oxford) where his reason was undermined by hunger and lack of sleep. He thereupon said many foolish things and rumours spread that there was a heretic at Oxford who could not bear to hear the name of Christ and the common people were persuaded that he should die. He was burned at the stake, but died with great tranquillity (Rerum, p. 139). In 1563, Foxe added details to this account - including some rather accurate ones about Cowbridge's family and background (William Cowbridge's father had been twice elected bailiff of Colchester (this was the city's highest municipal office) and he died in 1510. Margaret Cowbridge, William's mother, was charged with heresy on 15 July 1528 and purged herself on 17 July (BL, Harley MS 421, fo. 30v. Purging oneself was a means of gaining acquittal by having people of good status and reputation swear on oath to one's innocence of the charges. The fact that Margaret Cowbridge could provide such witnesses so quickly is an indication of her own status). For this family information, Foxe clearly consulted well-informed sources in Colchester. Another sign of how well Foxe researched this matter is that Foxe prints articles charged against Cowbridge, which he claims he obtained from a copy sent to the Lord Chancellor (It was very unusual for the charges against a heretic to be listed when notification was sent to Chancery of the heretic's condemnation. The documents Foxe saw where probably sent to Audley as a result of Cromwell's intervention in the case). The first article Foxe presents matches the eighth article against Cowbridge as copied into Bishop John Longland's register. The second article Foxe presents appears to be a garbled version - probably distorted by Foxe - of the fourth article against Cowbridge, which stated that neither the apostles nor the doctors of the Church knew how a sinner could be saved (Lincolnshire Archives Office, Register 26, fo. 284v).

Harpsfield raised a number of cogent objections to Foxe's account of the proceedings against Cowbridge, observing (in particular) that Cowbridge was tried in an ecclesiastical court and not by the theologians at Oxford, as Foxe claimed. Drawing 'on certain narratives of grave and pious men, who were not only eye-witnesses to the burning, like Foxe, but some of them also to what happened to Cowbridge at Oxford, men moreover, who were not boys at the time, as was your Foxe, but mature in age and judgement'. Harpsfield then described Cowbridge's examinations, trial and condemnation in detail (Dialogi sex, pp. 853-857). Harpsfield related that after Cowbridge was condemned, Bishop Longland had him sent to Oxford, in the hopes that the theologians there could save his soul before he was burned (Dialogi sex, p. 857). Most strikingly, Harpsfield produced a list of heretical beliefs which Cowbridge admitted holding. These are shortened and simplified, but basically accurate, versions of articles confessed to by Cowbridge and recorded in Bishop Longland's register; it is clear that Harpsfield drew directly or indirectly on the register (cf. Dialogi sex, pp. 859-60 with Lincolnshire Archives Office, Register 26, fos. 284v-285r). Among other things, Harpsfield accurately observed that Cowbridge declared Christ the deceiver, not the redeemer, of the world, that everyone who believed in the name of Christ was damned to hell, but that Jesus was good and that Christ's words at the Last Supper should be translated as 'This is my body by which the people shall be cheated and deceived' (Dialogi sex, pp. 859-60).

Faced with Harpsfield's well-documented criticisms, Foxe beat a hasty retreat in his second edition. He dropped his claim that Cowbridge was driven insane through mistreatment. He also deleted a sympathetic account of Cowbridge's background and life. Instead of defending Cowbridge, Foxe rather lamely declared that Cowbridge was insane and that burning a madman only demonstrated the Antichristian cruelty of the Catholic (Here Foxe is trying to turn Harpsfield's demonstration of the unorthodox nature of Cowbridge's beliefs to his polemical advantage. Since Cowbridge held outrageous religious beliefs, he therefore must have been insane. And the burning of a madman simply confirmed the cruelty of the Catholic prelates).

Thomas S. Freeman.