Marginalia1556. Maye.him selfe, of the which Sacrament (contrary to the nature of a Sacrament) the aduersaryes are wont to make an Idoll seruice: to this she protestyng openly her mynde, sayd as followeth: MarginaliaThe wordes and profession of Ioane Hornes touching the Sacrament.If you can make your God to shedde bloud, or to shew any condition of a true liuely body, then will I beleue you: but it is but bread (as touchyng the substaunce therof) meanyng the matter wherof the Sacrament consisteth: and that you call heresie, I trust to serue my Lord God in. &c.

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And as concernyng the Romish sea, she sayd: my Lord (speakyng to Boner) I forsake all his abhominations, and from them good Lord deliuer vs. From this her stable and constaunt assertion, when the Byshop was to weake to remoue her, and to ignoraunt to conuince her, MarginaliaThe Butcherly axe of Boner.he knockt her downe with the butcherly axe of his sentence. And so the holy Virgine and Martyr committed to the shambles of the secular sword, was offered vp with her other felowes a burnt sacrifice to the Lord, In odorem bonæ fragrantiæ,  

in the sauour of a sweete and pleasaunt smell.

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MarginaliaMargaret Ellys dyed in newgate.As touchyng Margaret Ellys, she likewise perseueryng in her foresayd confession, and resistyng the false Catholicke errours and heresies of the Papistes, was by the sayd Boner adiudged and condemned: but before the tyme of her burnyng came, preuented by death in Newgate prison, departed and slept in the Lord.

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MarginaliaElizabeth Thackuell, Mayd and Martyr.No lesse strength in the grace of the Lord appeared in the other mayde Elizabeth Thackuell, whose hart & mynde the Lord had so confirmed in his truth, so armed with patience, that as her aduersaries could by no sufficient knowledge of Scripture conuict her affirmation, so by no forceable attemptes they could remoue her confession. Whereupon she standyng to the death, beyng in lyke sorte condemned, by the sayd vnbyshoplyke *Marginalia* i. A persecutor. πλὴκτησ, gaue her lyfe willyngly and mildly for the confirmation and sealyng vp of the sincere truth of Gods word.

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These three innocent and godly women, thus falsly and wrongfully by men condemned for the iust quarell and cause of Gods Gospell, were had to Smithfield, and there cruelly bounde to the stake, gaue their bodyes to the tormentours, their spirites they commended to GOD. For whose glory they were willyng and ready to suffer what soeuer the cruell handes of their enemyes should worke agaynst them, dying more ioyfully in þ^e flamyng fire, then some of thē þ^t burned them, did peraduenture in their beddes. Such a Lord is God, glorious & wonderfull in all his Saintes. The Martyrdome of these Saintes of God was the 16. of May.

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MarginaliaMay. 5.MarginaliaTho. Drowry a blind boy, and Thom. Croker, Martyrs.YE heard a litle before, of two men, the one blynd, the other lame, whiche suffered about the xv. of May. And here is not to bee fogotten an other as godly a couple, whiche suffered the lyke passion and Martyrdome for the same cause of Religion at Glocester:MarginaliaPersecution at Glocester. of the whiche two, the one was the blynd boy, named Thomas Drowry,MarginaliaOf this blynde boy, reed before pag. 1435. mentioned before in the history of Byshoppe Hoper, whom the sayd vertuous Byshop confirmed then in the Lord, and in the doctrine of his word.

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With him also was burned an other in the same place, and at þ^e same fire in Glocester, about the v. of May, whose name was Thomas Croker Briclayer.

MarginaliaThe Martyrdome of three men burned at Beckleyes.AFter the death of these aboue rehearsed, were three men burnt at Beckles in Suffolke, in one fire, about the xxi, day of May. an. 1556. Whose names are here vnder specified.

Thomas Spicer, of Wynston, Laborer.

Iohn Deny, and Edmund   Commentary     Close His name was given as William Poole in 1563 and corrected in 1570. Pole.

This Thomas Spicer was a single man  

of the age of xix. yeares, and by vocation a Labourer, dwellyng in Wynston in the County of Suffolke, and there taken in his masters house in Sommer, about or anone after the rising of the Sunne (beyng in his bed) by MarginaliaIames Ling, Iohn Keretch, Will Dauies, persecutors.Iames Ling and Iohn Keretch of the same Towne, and William Dauyes of Debnam, in the sayd County.

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The occasion of his takyng was, for that he would not go to their Popish Church to heare Masse, and receiue their Idole at the commaundement of Syr Iohn Tyrrell Knight, of Gyppyng hall in Suffolke, and certaine other Iustices there, who sent both him and them to Eay doungeon in Suffolke, till at length they were all three together brought before MarginaliaDunning, Minges persecutors.Dunnyng then Chauncellour of Norwich, and M. Mynges the Register,  

sittyng at the Towne of Beckles to be examined.

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And there the sayd Chauncellour perswadyng what he could to turne them from the truth, could by no meanes preuayle of his purpose. Whereby myndyng in the ende to giue Sentence on them, he burst out in teares, intreatyng them to remēber thē selues, & to turne agayne to the holy mother Church, for that they were deceaued and out of the truth, & that they should not wilfully cast away them selues, with such lyke wordes.

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Now, as he was thus labouryng them and seemed very loth to read the Sentence (for they were the first that hee cōdemned in that Dioces) the Register there sittyng by  

beyng weery, belyke, of tarying, or els perceauyng the constant Martyrs to be at a point, called vpō the Chaūcellour in hast to rid them out of the way, and to make and end. At which wordes the Chauncellour read the cōdemnation ouer them with teares, and deliuered them to the secular power.

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THe Articles obiected to these and commonly to all other condemned in that Dioces by Doct. Hopton Byshop of Norwich, and by Dunnyng his Chauncellour, were these.

MarginaliaThe articles wherupon they were condemned. 1. First, was articulate against them, that they beleued not the Pope of Rome to bee supreme head immediately vnder Christ in earth of the vniuersall Catholicke Church.

2. Item, that they beleued not holy bread, and holy water, ashes, Palmes, MarginaliaCeremonyes.and all other lyke ceremonyes vsed in the Church, to be good and laudable for styrryng vp the people to deuotion.

3. Item, that they beleued not, MarginaliaSacrament of the Altar.after the wordes of consecratiō spokē by the Priest, the very naturall body of Christ, and no other substaunce of bread and wyne, to be in the Sacrament of the aultar.

4. Item, that they beleued it to bee Idolatry to worshyp Christ in the Sacrament of the aultar.

5. Item, that they tooke bread and wyne in remembraūce of Christes passion.

6. Item, that they would not folow the crosse in processiō nor be confessed to a Priest.

7. Item, that they affirmed no mortall man to haue in him selfe free will to do good or euill.

For this doctrine and Articles aboue prefixed, these three (as is aforesayd) were condemned by Doctour Dunnyng, and committed to the power secular, Syr Iohn Silliard beyng the same tyme hyghe Sheriffe of Northfolke and Suffolke.

And the next day followyng vpon the same, they were all burnt together in the sayd Towne of Beckles. Whereupon it is to be thought, that the write De comburendo, was not yet come downe, nor could not be,  

the Lord Chauncel-