1576 Edition | Book 8 | Page 1266 
to be suspected by some Promotor,
CloseI.e., an informer.
CloseFoxe's concern with family values is manifest throughout his work and, typically, he places most of the blame on the Catholic clergy.
And yet the malignitie of these aduersaries doth not here cease. For after that the fire hath consumed their bodyes, then they fall vppon their bookes and condemne them in like maner to be burned, and no man so hardy to read thē, or keepe them vnder payne of heresie.MarginaliaThe vse and maner how the Papistes drawe out articles of bookes after the authors be condemned. But before they haue abolished these bookes, first, they gather Articles out of thē, such as they lyste themselues, and so peruersly wrast & wring them after their owne purpose, falsely & contrary to the right meanyng of the authour, as may seeme after their puttyng downe, to be most hereticall, & execrable. Which beyng done, & bookes then abolished, that no man may cōferre them with their Articles to espy their falsehode: thē they diuulge and set abroad those Articles in such sort as Princes & people may see what heretickes they were. And this is the rigour of their processe and proceedyng agaynst these persons, whom thus they purpose to condemne, and burne.
[Back to Top]MarginaliaThe punishment of them whom the papistes condemne to perpetuall prison after their submission. To the second order belongeth that sorte of heretickes whom these Papistes do not condemn to death, but assigne them vnto Monasteries there to continue, and to fast all their lyfe, In pane doloris & aqua angustiæ, that is, with bread of sorow, and water of affliction: and that they should not remoue one myle out of the precinct of the sayd Monasterie, so long as they liued, without they were otherwise by the Archbyshop hymselfe or his successours dispensed with all. Albeit many tymes the sayd persons were so dispensed withall, that their penaunce of bread and water, was turned for them to go wollward
CloseI.e., the penitents had to wear woollen undergarments on certain designated days instead of the customary linen undergarments.
MarginaliaThe punishment of them which be inioyned penaūce after their recantation. The thyrd kynde of heretickes were those whom these Prelates dyd iudge not to perpetuall prison, but onely inioyned them penaunce either to stand before the preacher, or els to beare a Fagot about the market, or in procession: or els to weare the picture of a Fagot brodered on their left sleues, without any cloke or gowne vppon the same: or els to kneele at the saying of certaine Masses: or to say so many Pater nosters, Aues, and Creedes to such or such a Saint: or to go in pilgrimage to such or such a place: or els to beare a Fagot to the burnyng of some hereticke: either els to fast certaine Fridayes bread and water: Or if it were a womā , to weare no smocke on Fridayes, but to go wolward.
CloseI.e., the penitents had to wear woollen undergarments on certain designated days instead of the customary linen undergarments.
And thus much by the way out of the Register of William Warrham aforesayd, like as also out of other Byshops Registers many mo such like matters and examples might be collected, if either laysure would serue me to search, or if the largenes of this Volume would suffer all to be inserted that might be found. Howbeit, amōgest many other thyngs omitted, the story and Martyrdome of Lancelot, and hys felowes, is not to be forgotten. The story of whō with their names, is this.
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CloseFoxe's source for this triple burning is unclear. The immediately preceding comment suggests that it comes from a now-lost episcopal register, but the imprecise and narrative nature of the tale he tells makes such a formulaic source unlikely. The account was first introduced in 1570 and remained unchanged thereafter.Three other sources record this event, although there are significant differences between each account. In a letter written early in 1541, Richard Hilles wrote that 'before Whitsuntide [1540] three persons were burned in the suburbs of London, in that part of the city belonging to the diocese of Winchester, because they denied transubstantiation, and had not received the sacrament at Easter'. Epistolae Tigurinae de rebus potissimum ad ecclesiae Anglicanae reformationem (Cambridge, 1848), p. 133 (Hastings Robinson (ed.), Original Letters relative to the English Reformation (Cambridge, 1846), p. 200). Charles Wriothesley's chronicle records that on 3 May 1540 three individuals were burned at Southwark for 'heresie against the sacrament of the aulter.' The place, date and offence all fit neatly with Hilles' account (Whitsun fell on 16 May in 1540). Wriothesley named one of the offenders as Maundevild, a French groom to the queen (that is, Anne of Cleves), described another of them as a painter, and gave no information at all about the third. Charles Wriothesley, A Chronicle of England during the Reigns of the Tudors, ed. William D. Hamilton, vol. I (Camden Society ns XI, 1875), p. 118. Perhaps most significantly for Foxe's account, his mentor John Bale wrote in 1544 that Bishop Gardiner had, at an unspecified point in the previous few years, 'broyled in saynct Georges felde beyonde Sothwarke one gyles a Ioynar with one of the quenes seruauntes and a paynter before fyue a clocke in the morninge, least the common people shuld haue knowen your lewde legerdemayne ouer theyr last confessions.' John Bale, The Epistle exhortatorye of an Englyshe Christiane (STC 1291: Antwerp, 1544), fos. 14v-15r.It is near-certain that this is the same event which Foxe describes. The discrepancy of dates between May 1540 and Foxe's 'about' 1539 can be disregarded, given Foxe's cavalier chronology. Foxe's insistence that his executions took place at St. Giles in the Fields, north of the Thames and in London diocese, is harder to reconcile with Hilles' and Wriothesley's account, but Bale's claim that it took place in St. George's field, by Southwark, suggests a neat solution in which a mistranscription by one of Foxe's researchers introduced the confusion. The names 'Lancelot' and 'Maundevild' are probably too different to be garbled versions of one another, but are perfectly plausible as a Frenchman's Christian name and surname, and Foxe agrees with Wriothesley and Bale that this man was in royal service. Foxe agrees with Wriothesley and Bale that the second man was a painter, with Bale that the third man was called Giles, and with Bale that the executions took place at the crack of dawn.Strikingly, either two or three of the victims were foreigners: Maundevild / Lancelot was French and John the painter Italian, and Giles Germane may have been German, as his surname suggests. This raises the possibility that all three were executed in the wake of the panic about foreign Anabaptists in 1538-9.Alec Ryrie
[Back to Top]MarginaliaLancelot, Iohn a Painter, Gyles Germane, Martyrs. ABout the yeare of our Lord. 1539. one Iohn a Painter, and Gyles Germane were accused of heresie, and whilest they were in examination at London before the Byshop and other Iudges, by chaunce there came in one of the Kynges seruauntes named Lancelot, a very tall mā, & of no lesse godly mynde and disposition, then strong and tall of body.
[Back to Top]This man standyng by, seemed by his countenaunce and gesture to fauour both the cause & the poore men his frēdes. Whereupon he beyng apprehended, was examined and condemned together with them, and the next day at v. of the clocke in the mornyng, was caried with them into S. Giles in the field, and there burned, beyng but a small concourse or company of people at their death.
[Back to Top]MarginaliaOne Stile Martyr burned in Smithfield with the Apocalips. In the company and fellowship of these blessed Saints and Martyrs of Christ
CloseThis account was, as Foxe states, provided directly to him by Sir Robert Outred. No corroborating evidence of this incident survives, and it can only be dated by reference to Cuthbert Tunstall's episcopate in London (1522-30). The date makes it likely that Stile was a Lollard, and this is corroborated by Foxe's account: the Apocalypse (that is, the book of Revelation) was a favourite Lollard Biblical text, of which handwritten copies frequently circulated independently. It can only be a Wycliffite book of Revelation that is referred to here.
[Back to Top]ANd thus (through the gracious supportation of Christ our Lord) we haue runne ouer these 37. laborious yeares of kyng Henries race. Vnder whose tyme and gouernaunce, such actes and recordes, troubles, persecutions, recantations, practises, alterations and reformations as then happened in the church, we haue here discoursed, with such statutes, iniunctions, & proclamations as by him were set forth in causes & matters to the sayd church apperteining: Albeit not cōprehending all thyngs so fully as might be, yet pretermitting so few things as we coulde, of suche matters as came to our handes:MarginaliaPope Leo hys Bull agaynst Luther. saue onely, that certayne instrumentes with a few other occurrentes somewhat pertaining to the course of this kynges history, haue past our hands, as the false lying Bull of pope Leo x. against M. Luther:MarginaliaM. Luthers appeale frō the Pope to a generall Councell. with the forme also of the sayde M. Luthers appeale from the Pope vnto a generall Councell. All which, with other matters mo besides omitted, we haue differred by themselues hereafter to be exhibited and declared in the sequele of thys present story, as in his due place shal appeare.
CloseHenry VIII's struggle to rid himself of Catherine of Aragon had been going on for more than five years by the time that Pope Clement issued his decree. Clement had refused for a number of reasons to grant the king the annulment which he had wanted, and in the spring of 1533 the King had taken matters into his own hands. He had secretly married Anne Boleyn, and had caused Thomas Cranmer, the newly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, to declare his first marriage null and void. Anne Boleyn had then been crowned as Queen, and Clement's reaction had been to order him to take Catherine back on pain of excommunication. Meanwhile Catherine's appeal for a definitive sentence in her favour still hung fire in the Curia. It appears that Clement was still hoping to settle the issue by diplomacy. It was not until March 1534 that the Consistory finally issued its verdict. These issues are thoroughly discussed in Garrett Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon (1942), J..J. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII (1968), H.A. Kelly, The Matrimonial Trials of Henry VIII (1976) and E. Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn (2004). The reference to 'his defense against the Emperour and the Spayniards' is an allusion to the determined influence which Charles V had exercised from the beginning on behalf of his aunt.
[Back to Top]David Loades
University of Sheffield
MarginaliaThe sentence definitiue of Pope Clement vij. agaynst the diuorce of K. Henry. In the meane season, amongst other omissions here ouer past, for so much as a certayne instrument of the popes Sentence definitiue
CloseThe 'sentence definitive' against Henry VIII which came into Foxe's hands was probably the copy now surviving as BL Cotton MS Vitellius B.XIV, 3. Three copies are listed in Letters and Papers (VII, 362), of which two are described as 'modern copies'. The document was printed by Nicholas Pocock in Records of the Reformation, II, p.532. Gardiner's mission to Rome with Edward Foxe took place in 1528, not 1532, and no letter survives which corresponds with the description here given. Gardiner wrote to Henry VIII from Viterbo on the 11 June (before he had met the Pope) saying that he thought Clement, entertained a 'sincere love' for Henry.(James Muller, Letters of Stephen Gardiner, 1933, p.5). If a more favourable letter was written to Wolsey it does not apparently survive. The 'Kinges booke' referred to was probably A Glasse of the Truthe (T. Berthelet, 1532)
[Back to Top]For so I finde by the letters of D. Steuen Gardiner, writtē to Cardinall Wolsey frō rome, (at what tyme he & Foxe were sent Ambassadors by the kyng to Pope Clement the 7. about the expedition of the kinges diuorce, anno. 1532) that the sayd Pope Clement with the counsaile of the Cardinall Sanctorum quatuor, and other Cardinals, at first was well willyng, and very inclinable to the accomplishment and satisfaction of the kinges desire in that behalf and that for diuers respects.
[Back to Top]MarginaliaThe causes mouing the Pope at the first to fauour the cause of the kinges diuorce. As first, for the great benefites receyued, and the singular deuotion of the kyng toward the sea Apostolike, in takyng warre for the Churches cause, in surceasing warre at the Popes desire, and especially in procuryng the Popes deliueraūce, whereby the Pope then thought himselfe with hys whole Sea, much obliged to the kyng in all respectes, to passe by his authority whatsoeuer reasonably might be graunted in gratifiyng the kynges so ample merites and desertes.
[Back to Top]Secondly, for the euident reasons and substantiall argumentes in the * kynges booke conteyned, which seemed well to satisfie the Popes likyng, and to remoue away all scruples.
Thirdly, for the good opinion & confidence that the Pope had in the excellent wisedome, profounde learnyng, and