1576 Edition | Book 11 | Page 1567 
Marginalia1555. Iuly.but as two. men with a sheete were fayne to styrre hym: and withall such an insaciable deuouryng came vpon hym,
that it was monstrous to see. And thus cōtinued he þe space of eight yeares together.
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CloseFoxe replaced the longer English poem in honour of Bradford with a shorter Latin poem. Interestingly, the English poem appears to be a translation; a Latin version of it remains among Foxe's papers (BL, Harley 416, fo. 38r).
MarginaliaEpitaphiū in Ioan Bradfordum per Ioan. Frierum.
Discipulo nulli supra licet esse magistrum:
Quique Deo seruit, tristia multa feret.
Corripit omnipotens natum quem diligit omnem:
Ad cœlum stricta est difficilisque via.
Has Bradforde tuo dum condis pectore voces:
Non hominum rigidas terribilesque minas,
Sed nec blanditias, non vim, nec vincula curas,
Tradis & accensæ membra cremanda pyræ.
CloseDuring Edward VI's reign, John Bradford was a respected and popular preacher with Bishop Ridley as his powerful patron. In the first half of Mary's reign, Bradford was arguably the most important protestant in England. Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer and Hooper were deferred to by other protestants, but they were, especially in the cases of Cranmer and Latimer, relatively isolated from other protestants. Bradford, in contrast, building upon relationships formed in Edward VI's reign, maintained connections among protestants, clergy and lay, in prison and outside of it, from Kent to Lancashire. He did this through epistles, leaving behind an impressive body of letters.
[Back to Top]Foxe and Henry Bull together printed eighty-six of his letters. (A further nine were printed in the Parker Society volumes of his works; seven of these had never been previously printed). Fifty-six letters are printed in the Acts and Monuments and forty-three are printed in both the Acts and Monuments and Letters of the Martyrs. Thirteen of Bradford?s letters are printed in the Acts and Monuments, but not the Letters of the Martyrs, while thirty of them are printed in the Letters of the Martyrs but not in the Acts and Monuments.
[Back to Top]This serves once again to underscore the immense contribution Henry Bull made to the Acts and Monuments. None of Bradford's letters were printed in the Rerum, although Foxe apparently had received some of Bradford's letters from Grindal (BL, Harley 417, fo. 113r). Certainly in the 1563 edition, Foxe was able to print Bradford's 'corporate letters' - i.e., his epistles to London, to Cambridge, to Lancashire and to Walde, Essex - as well as his letter to 'B. C.', one of his letters to Erkinwald Rawlins and one of his letters to Anne Warcup. Thirty-four of the thirty-six Bradford letters added to the 1570 edition were first printed in Letters of the Martyrs. (In addition to letters, Foxe also added his own notes on predestination to this section of the 1570 edition). There were no changes to Bradford's letters in the 1576 edition, but in the 1583 edition Foxe added Bradford's letter to Thomas Hall and all of his letters to John Traves.
[Back to Top]Bradford had three overwhelming concerns in his letters: to encourage the English protestants to endure persecution faithfully and especially not to attend mass; to console the spiritual distress of the faithful and to combat doctrinal 'errors' among English protestants, most especially the rejection of predestination. Foxe printed most of Bradford's writings on the first two subjects, but he only printed two letters which Bradford wrote touching on doctrinal disputes among the protestants. The issue of protestant doctrinal devisiveness had been raised by Foxe's catholic critics in the mid-1560s, and as a result Foxe suppressed most references to it in the subsequent editions of his work.
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CloseIn the previous section and others like it, the most interesting aspect of the glosses is the way in which they condition the reader's response to the text; in this section something like the opposite happens: certain pieces of the text are reformulated in the glosses in a way which suggests that they were designed for the kind of 'garnering' familiar in a commonplace-book culture: less entries to the text than things to take out. The margin thus provided a place for the reconstruction of the sufferings of the martyrs and their responses to them in a way which helped to soothe the religious pains of godly Elizabethans. This can be seen in glosses such as 'learne here to put away doubting al tender harts that seeke after christ': there is nothing specifically 'Marian' about this apart from its setting. By concentrating the statements of Bradford about spiritual and other suffering into tags which could be appropriated beyond their immediate context, Foxe produced a resource which could be used in his own church. The overlap of many of Bradford's concerns with Elizabethan practical divinity helps to explain this phenomenon. Thus, many of the glosses are concerned with affliction: what causes it (sin: 'Our sinnes prouoke persecutiō'; 'Gods manifold plagues vpon England in Q. Maryes dayes'; 'The cause of Gods plagues is our iniquities, and not knowing the tyme of Gods visitation'), the fact that to be punished in this world is a mercy ('Gods mercy the cause why we are punished here'; 'God punisheth not twise for one thing'), and that affliction is for the trial of God's children ('God vseth to proue and try his children'; 'Trouble tryeth who be of God, & who be not'; 'Affliction tryeth who goe with God, and who goe with the Deuill').
[Back to Top]All of these points were as relevant thirty and more years after they were made, to judge from the output of later divines. A related point is Bradford's continual allusion to the cross, exploiting a pun between the death of Christ and a synonym for affliction ('The efficacy of the crosse, and what it worketh in Gods children'; 'Prayse of the Crosse'; 'The Crosse a great tokē of Election'; 'Worldly losse recompēsed With endeles and perpetuall gayne by the Crosse'; 'What commoditie the Crosse bringeth'; 'Promises annexed to the Crosse'; 'The Crosse a token of Gods election'). This allows him to make the point that the persucutors do not attack his sins but Christ in him ('The Martyrs persecuted of the prelates not for their sinnes, but onely for Christ'; 'The Papistes condemne not Bradford but Christ'; 'Christ himselfe persecuted in his Martyrs'; 'The Prelates persecute and hate the Martirs not for their iniquities, but for hatred of Christ & of his veritye in them'; 'Bradford persecuted of the prelates not for his sines but for the truth of Christ'). Bearing this fundamental self-confidence in mind makes it easier to understand the glosses which highlight Bradford's highly self-critical attacks on his own sinfulness ('Bradford sory that he doth not more reioyce dying in so good a quarell'; 'He confesseth his sinnes before God'; 'M. Bradford accuseth agayne his owne lyfe'; 'M. Bradford accuseth himselfe of negligence. &c.'); these also have their use in practical divinity as models for articulating self-recrimination in the godly without tipping too far into despair (and along those lines, there is a gloss advising on the proper attitude to predestination: 'M.B. For the certainty of this fayth search your hartes. If you haue it. prayse the Lord: for you are happy, and therefore cannot finally perishe: for then happines were not happines, if it could be lost. Whē you fall the Lorde will put vnder his hand that you shall not lye still. But if ye feele not this fayth, then know that predestination is to high a matter for you to be disputers of, vntill you haue been better scholers in the schoolehouse of repentance & iustification. which is the Grammer schoole wherein we must be conuersant and learned, before we goe to the vniuersitye of Gods most holy predestination and prouidence'). Other glosses introducing letters make it clear that at the centre of Bradford's understanding of such issues was an ongoing concern with helping the afflicted ('A pithy and effectuall letter of M. Bradford to M. Warcup, and Mistres Wilkinson'; 'A letter of M. Bradford to a faythfull womā inwardly afflicted'). His pastoral concern is also advertised in the fact that he is often quite critical of the failings of Marian protestants: as with his successful chastising of the people attacking Bourne, he clearly felt (and Foxe was keen to portray him as such) able to issue reproofs which from others might have been less well taken ('Complaynt of the Carnall and wicked lyfe among the Gospellers'; 'Bradford prophecied before the Sweat time what would follow of carnall Gospelling, if repentance did not come'; 'Wanton Gospellers'; 'Proud Protestantes'; 'False Christians'; 'M. Bradford accuseth himselfe of negligence. &c.').
[Back to Top]In addition to glosses setting out Bradford's charisma and those packaging his wisdom for later generations to use, are the more usual type of glosses. There are many scriptural references, as is usual with the letters of martyrs, and there are also many glosses summarising Bradford's attacks on the mass ('The Masse is a poyson to the Church'; 'Doubtes & obiections aunswered'; 'The Sacrament of the aultar quite ouerthroweth the Lordes supper'; 'Fayth commeth by hearing the word and not by hearing Masse'; 'What daunger it is to goe to the blasphemous masse'; 'Reasōs prouing that no Christian may come to the Popishe mattins and euensong, with a good conscience'; 'The Popes seruice is in a tongue vnknowen'; 'The Popes seruice is full of Idolatrye; 'The Popes seruice cōdemneth our English seruice of heresye'; 'The Popes Latin seruice is a marke of Antichrist'; 'The going to the popes seruice geueth ill example, and is offensiue'; 'The Masse is the principall seruice of Antichrist'; 'A false Christ of the Priest & the bakers making'). Scory is listed as godly preacher in the earlier editions, but not in 1583. For the most part the glosses deviate little from the text, as one might expect given the profound sympathy Foxe felt for Bradford's writings. Two exceptions to this are: 'All our election is in and for Christ only', which is somewhat more theologically nuanced than Bradford's own formulation of Christ's relationship to election, and 'Gods sheepe must feede on the bare common: where the deuills cattell are stalfed', which expands Bradford's metaphorical pasture to talk of the devil's cattle that God's sheep must live among: this may reflect the less stark (and in a sense more troubling) distinctions between godly and ungodly in Elizabethan England. There are problems with the placing of glosses at several points, and disagreements about cross-references (with 1570as the most consistently correct as usual) can be found. As one might expect in a section with many scriptural references, there are several disagreements between editions.
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CloseThere are thirty letters written by Bradford which were published in the Letters of the Martyrs and were never printed in any edition of the Acts and Monuments.
MarginaliaThe copie of M. Bradfordes letter whereof the Earle of Darby complayned in the parlamētAnd first, for so muche as ye hearde in the story before, pag. 1523. howe the Earle of Darby complayned in the Parlament house, of certain letters written of Ioh. Bradford out of Prison, to Lankeshire, and also howe he was charged both of the Bishop of Winchester, and of maister Allen with the same letters, to the intent the Reader more perfectly may vnderstande what letters they were, beyng written in deede to his mother, brethren, and sisters, out of
[Back to Top]the Tower, before his condemnation, we wyl begynne first with the same letters: the copie with the contents wherof is this, as foloweth.
CloseThis letter first appeared in Letters of the Martyrs, pp. 290-94. ECL 260, fos. 124r-125v is a copy of this letter surviving in Foxe's papers.
MarginaliaA letter of M. Bradford to his mother, brethren and sisters.OVr deare and sweete Saueour Iesus Christe, whose prisoner at this present (praysed be his name therefore) I am, preserue and keepe you my good mother, with my brothers and sisters, my Father Iohn Traues, Thomas Sorrocold, Laurence and Iames Bradshawe with their wiues and families. &c. now and for euer. Amen.
[Back to Top]I am at this present in prison sure enough for starting, to cōfirme that I haue preached vnto you:
CloseThis is another indication of Bradford's extensive preaching in Manchester and the region around it.
CloseBradford is referring to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70.