Marginalia1558. Nouēb.MarginaliaThe wife persecuting her husband.But such was the power of Sathan in the malicious hart of that wicked woman, that notwithstandyng his gentill dealyng with her, yet she so soone as she had recouered some health, did agayne accuse her husband: MarginaliaIohn Fetty agayne apprehended.whereupon he was the second tyme apprehended, and caryed vnto Syr Iohn Mordaunt Knight, one of the Queenes Commissioners, and he vppon examination sent him by Cluny the Byshoppes Sumner, vnto Lollardes Tower: MarginaliaThe strait handling of Iohn Fettey by Syr Iohn Mordant.where he was (euen at the first) put into the paynefull stockes, and had a dishe of water set by him, with a stone put into it. To what purpose God knoweth, except it were to shew that he should looke for litle other sustenaunce. Which is credible inough, if we consider their like practises vpon diuers before mentioned in this history, as (amongest other) vppon MarginaliaRichard Smith dead in prison through cruell handling.Richard Smith, who dyed through their cruell imprisonment. Touchyng whom, when a godly woman came vnto Doct. Story to haue leaue that she might bury him, he asked her if he had any straw or bloud in his mouth: but what he mēt thereby, I leaue to the iudgement of the godly wise.

After the foresayd Fetty had thus layen in the prison by the space of xv. dayes, hangyng in the stockes, sometyme by the one legge and the one arme, sometyme by the other, and otherwhiles by both, it happened that one of his children (a boy, of the age of eight or nine yeares) came vnto the Byshoppes house to see if he could get leaue to speake with his father. MarginaliaThe cruell handling and scourging of Iohn Fetteyes chylde.At his commyng thether, one of the Byshoppes Chaplaines met with him, and asked him what he lacked, and whom he would haue. The child aunswered that hee came to see his father. The Chaplaine asked agayne, who was his father. The boy then told him & pointyng towards Lollardes Tower, shewed him that his father was there in prison. Why (quoth the Priest) thy father is an hereticke. The child beyng of a bold and quicke spirite, and also Godly brought vp and instructed by his father in the knowledge of God, aunswered and sayd: my father is no hereticke: but you are an hereticke: For you haue Baalams marke.

With that the Priest tooke the child by the hand, and caried him into the Byshops house (whether to the Byshop, or not, I know not, but like inough he did) & MarginaliaThe miserable tyranny of the Papistes in scourging a chylde.there amongest them they did most shamelesly & without all pitie, so whippe and scourge, beyng naked, this tender child, that he was all in a gore bloud, and then, in a ioly bragge of their Catholicke tyranny, they caused Cluny, hauyng his coate vpō his arme, to cary the child in his shyrt vnto his father beyng in prison, the bloud runnyng downe by his heeles.

At his cōmyng vnto his father,MarginaliaThe childe al bloudy brought to his father in prison. the child fell downe vpō his knees, and asked him blessing. The poore mā then beholdyng his child, and seyng him so cruelly arrayed, cryed out for sorrow, and sayd: Alas Wil, who hath done this to thee? The boy aunswered, that as he was seekyng how to come to see his father, a Priest with Baalams marke tooke him into the Byshops house, and there was he so handled. MarginaliaClunny caryeth the boy agayne to the Bishops house.Cluny therewith violently plucked the child away out of his fathers handes, & caried him backe agayne into the Byshops house, where they kept him about three dayes after.

And at the iij. dayes end, Boner (mindyng to make the matter whole, and somewhat to appease the poore man, for this their horrible fact) determined to release him, and therfore caused him early in a morning to be brought out of Lollardes Tower, into his bedchāber, where he found the Byshop bastyng of him selfe agaynst a great fire: and at his first entryng into the chamber, MarginaliaThe wordes betwene Boner and Iohn Fetty.Fetty sayd, GOD be here and peace. God be here and peace (quoth Boner) that is neither GOD speede, nor good morrow. If ye kicke agaynst this peace (sayd Fetty) thē this is not the place that I seeke for.

A Chaplaine of the Bishops stāding by, turned the poore man about, & thinkyng to deface him, sayd in mockyng wise: what haue we here? a Player? Whilest this Fetty was standing in the Byshops chāber, he espyed hāging about the Byshops bedde a great payre of blacke beades: MarginaliaBoners Beades.wherupon he sayd: my Lord. I thinke the hangman is not farre of: for þ^e halter (pointing to þ^e beades) is here already. At which wordes the Byshop was in a marueilous rage.

Then immediatly after he espyed also, standyng in the sayd Byshops chamber in the window, a litle CrucifixMarginaliaBoners Crucifixe. (before whiche belyke Boner vsed to kneele in the tyme of his hypocriticall prayers). Then he asked the Byshop what it was: and he aunswered that it was Christ. Was he handled so cruelly as he is here pictured, quoth Fetty?

Yea that he was, sayd the Byshop.

And euen so cruelly will you handle such as come before you. MarginaliaB. Boner compared to Cayphas.For you are vnto Gods people, as Cayphas was vnto Christ.

The Byshop beyng in a great fury sayd: thou art a vyle hereticke, and I will burne thee, or els I will spēde all that I haue vnto my gowne.

Nay my Lord, sayd Fetty, ye were better to geue it to some poore body, that he may pray for you. But yet Boner

bethinkyng in him selfe of the daunger which the child was in by their whippyng, and what perill might insue thereupon, thought better to discharge him: whiche thyng was accomplished.

MarginaliaB. Boner for feare of the law in murdering a childe, deliuered the father out of prison.Wherepon, after this and such talke, the Byshop at last discharged him, willyng him to go home and cary his child with him: which he so did, and that with a heauy hart, to see his poore boy in such extreme payne and grief. But within xiiij. dayes after the child dyed, whether thorough this cruell scourgyng, or any other infirmitie,MarginaliaThe Martyrdome of a childe scourged to death in Boners house. I know not, and therfore I referre the truth thereof vnto the Lord, who knoweth all secretes, and also to the discrete Iudgement of the wise Reader. But how so euer it was, the Lord yet vsed this their cruell and detestable fact, as a meanes of his prouidence for the deliuery of this good poore man and faythfull Christian: his name be euer praysed therfore, Amen.

¶ The cruell handlyng and burnyng of Nicolas Burton Englishman and Marchaunt in Spayne.  

Commentary     Close

Englishmen Persecuted in Spain

The accounts of Burton, the unnamed Englishman burned on 22 December 1560, Baker, Burgate, Burges and Hoker first appeared in the 1563 edition. In the 1570 edition an account of John Fronton's ordeals was added. This was taken from a translation of Reginaldus Gonsalvius Montanus's account of the Inquisition which was printed by John Day in 1568. ['Reginaldus Gonsalvius Montanus' was a pseudonym. B. A. Vermaseren has persuasively argued that 'Gonsalvius' was really Antonio del Corro, a Spanish theologian who converted to Calvinism and lived in exile in Antwerp and later taught theology at Oxford ('Who was Reginaldus Gonsalvius Montanus?' Bibliotheque d'Hiumanisme et Renaissance 47 [1985], pp. 47-77)].

[Back to Top]

MarginaliaThe story of Nicholas Burton Martyr in Spayne.FOrasmuch as in our former booke of Actes and Monumentes mention was made of the Martyrdome of Nicholas Burton, I thought here also not to omit þ^e same, the story beyng such as is not vnworthy to be knowē, aswell for the profitable example of his singular constancie, as also for the notyng of the extreme dealyng and cruell rauenyng of those Catholicke Inquisitours of Spayne, who vnder the pretensed visour of Religion do nothing but seeke their owne priuate gayne and commoditie, with crafty defēdyng and spoylyng of other mens goodes, as by the notyng of this story may appeare.

The fift day of the moneth of Nouember, about the yeare of our Lord God. 1560. this Nicholas BurtonMarginaliaNicholas Burton Londoner.Citizen sometyme of London and Marchaunt, dwellyng in the Parishe of little Saint Bartlemewe, peaceably and quietly followyng his traffike in the trade of Marchaundise, and beyng in the Citie of Cadix in the partes of Andolazia in Spayne, there came into his lodgyng a Iudas (or as they terme them) a Familiar of the Fathers of the Inquisition. Who in askyng for the sayd Nicholas Burton, fayned that hee had a Letter to deliuer to his owne handes: by whiche meanes he spake with him immediatly. And hauing no Letter to deliuer to him, then the sayd Promoter or Familiar, at the motion of the Deuill his maister, whose messenger he was, inuented an other lye, and sayd that he would take ladyng for London in such shyppes as the sayd Nicholas Burton had frayted to lade, if he would let any: whiche was partly to knowe where hee laded his goodes, that they might attache them, and chiefly to detract the tyme vntill the Alguisiel, or Sergeant of the sayd Inquisitiō, might come and apprehend the body of the sayd Nicolas Burton: whiche they did incontinently.

Who then well perceauyng þ^t they were not able to burden nor charge him that he had written, spoken, or done any thyng there in that countrey agaynst the Ecclesiasticall or Temporall lawes of the same Realme, boldly asked them what they had to lay to his charge that they did so Arrest hym, and bad them to declare the cause and hee would aunswere them. Notwithstandyng, they aunswered nothyng, but commaunded him with cruell and threatnyng woordes to hold his peace, and not to speake one word to them.

MarginaliaNich. Burton layd in prison, they hauing no cause to charge him with.And so they caryed him to the cruell and filthy common prison of the same Towne of Cadix, where he remained in yrons xiiij. daies amongest theeues.

All whiche tyme he so instructed the poore prisoners in the worde of GOD, accordyng to the good talent whiche GOD had geuen him in that behalfe and also in the Spanish toung to vtter the same, that in short space he had well reclaymed sundry of these superstitious and ignorant Spanyardes to embrace the woorde of God, and to reiect their Popish traditions.

Whiche beyng knowen vnto the Officers of the Inquisition,MarginaliaNich Burton caryed to Siuill.they conueyed him laden with yrons from thence to a Citie called Siuill, into a more cruell and straighter prison called Triana,  

Commentary     Close

The Trajana is a district of Seville, not a prison.

MarginaliaNich. Burton brought to iudgment after a disguised maner.Afterward the xx. day of December, in the foresayd yeare, they brought the sayd Nicholas Burton with a great number of other prisoners, for professyng the true Christian Religion, into the Citie of Siuill, to a place where the sayd Inquisition sat in Iudgement, whiche they call the Awto, with a Canuas coate, whereon in diuers partes was paynted the figure of an houge Deuill, tormentyng a soule in a flame of fire, and on his head a coppyng tanke of the same woorke.