MarginaliaThe popishe chauncelour woulde not seeme to consent to hys death: but yet could send hym to the Shābles to be kilde. and therefore he desired the Sheriffe that he would receyue this person as relapsed and condemned, and yet to punishe hym otherwise then by rigorous rigour. The wordes to be marked in their sentence be these: Rogamus attente in visceribus Iesu Christi, vt huiusmodi dignæ seueritatis vltio & executio de te & contra te in hac parte fienda taliter moderetur, vt non sit rigor rigidus, neq; mansuetudo dissoluta, sed ad salutem & sanitatem animæ tuæ. &c. That is: we desire in the bowels of our Lorde Iesu Christe, that the punishment and execution of due seueritie of thee, and agaynst thee in this part may so be moderate, that there be no rigorous rigor nor yet no dissolute mansuetude, but to the health and wealth of thy soule. &c. Wherin these Catholique Churchmen doo wel declare, accordyng to the words of Thomas Man before expressed, that the lawes of their Churche be grounded vppon Pilate and Cayphas. For like as Caiphas with his Courte of Pharisees, cryed agaynst Christe vnto Pilate: It is not lawfull for vs to put any man to death: But if thou let hym goe, thou art not Cæsars freende. Euen so they, first condemnyng the saints of God to death, and then deliueryng them vnto the secular Magistrate, to be thereupon executed, woulde yet couer their malignant hartes with the cloke of hypocritical holynes, and vnwillyngnes to shedde bloud. But God be thanked, which bringeth al things to light in his due tyme, and vncouereth hypocrisie, at last that shee may be seene & knowen in her right colours.
[Back to Top]Thus Thomas Man, the māly martyr of Iesu Christ, beyng cōdemned by the vniust sentence of Hed the Chaūcelor, was deliuered to the Sheriffe of Lond. sitting on horsbacke, in Pater noster rowe,
This information cannot be in the official records of More's trial; presumably Foxe had an oral source for this.
This implies that Man was executed immediately after his trial, and states that the authorities did not wait for the writ authorizing his execution. Actually the signification of Man's excommunication was sent to Chancery, dated 1 March 1518. If Foxe is correct in stating that Man was executed on 29 March, then clearly there was an interval between condemnation and execution and it is virtually certain that it was spent awaiting the proper authorization for the execution.
[Back to Top]This is a slang name for a cell in Newgate where the condemned awaited execution.
In the deposition of one Thomas Risby, weauer of Stratforde Langthorne, against the forenamed Martyr Tho. Man, it appeareth by the Registers, that he had bene in diuers places and countreys in Englād, and had instructed very many, as at Amersham, at Lond. at Billerica, at Chemsford, at Stratford Langford, at Oxbrige, at Burnham, at Henley vpon Thamis, in Suffolke, & Northfolk, at Newbery, and diuers places moe: where he hym selfe testifieth, that as he went Westward, he foūd a great companye of wel disposed persons, being of the same iudgement touching the sacramēt of the Lords supper, that he was of, and especially at Newbery, where was (as he confessed) a glorious and swete societie of faythfull fauourers, who had continued the space of. xv. yeares together,MarginaliaEx Regist. Rich. Fitziames. Pag. 197. tyl at last by a certaine lewd person, whom they trusted & made of their counsel, they were bewrayed, and then many of them,MarginaliaVj. score abiured, and 3. or 4. burnt about Newbery 60 yeares agoe. to the nūber of sixe or seuen score were abiured, and iij. or iiij. of them bnrnt. Frō thence he came then (as he confessed) to the forest of Windesore, where he hearing of the brethren whiche were at Hamersham, remoued thyther, where he founde a godly and a great company, which had continued in that doctrine and teaching xxiij. yeares: which was from this present tyme. 70. yeres agone. And this congregation of Buckingham shyre men, remayned tyll the time of Iohn Longland B. of Lincolne, wherof we shal (Christ willing) heare more anone.
Foxe is reminding his readers of the extent and longevity of the Lollard congregations as part of his efforts to show that there was a 'True Church' before Luther.
William Tilesworth was excommunication and the signification of this excommunica-tion and commitment to the secular authority survives and is dated 10 August 1511 (TNA C 85/115/10). Although the date Foxe gave was incorrect, this document - which lists Robert Cosin, William Scrivener, Nicholas Collins and Thomas Man as also being condemned - shows that, in this case, apart from the date, the information from Foxe's aged informants was essentially accurate.
[Back to Top]There is no surviving information on Thomas Chase apart from theaccount in Foxe. This account - as Foxe makes clear - is based on testimony from contemporaries to the events and the cruelty with which Chase was treated undoubt-edly lost nothing in the telling. It seems reasonable to accept that Thomas Chase wasarrested for heresy and committed suicide in prison. There is no way of telling whathappened beyond that but claims that he was murdered seem far-fetched.
[Back to Top]MarginaliaRobert Cosyn burnt at Buckingham. THis Robert Cosin semeth to be the same, whiche in the former part of our historie is forementioned, beyng called by the name of Father Robert, and was burnt in Buckyngham,
This must be Robert Cosin, of Little Missenden, who is recorded on TNA C 85/115/10 as being condemned to death for heresy. Foxe will laterdescribe the execution of Thomas Man, but he says nothing about the executionsof William Scrivener or Nicholas Collins.
This is Foxe's most explicit reference to drawing on a court book (now missing) for Lollards persecuted by William Smith, the bishop of Lincoln.
MarginaliaWilliam Swetyng Martyr.
Ex Regist. Rich. Fitziames. pag. 60. WIlliam Sweting,
Andrew Hope, 'The lady and the bailiff: Lollardy among the gentry in Yorkist and Tudor England' in Lollardy and the gentry in the later Middle Ages, ed. Margaret Aston and Colin Richmond (Stroud, 1997), pp. 250-277, provides a definitive study of Sweeting and his background.
William Sweeting acquired the alias of 'Clerk' because he was a water clerk at the parish church at Boxted for seven years.
Lady Margery Wood was the wife of Sir John Wood, speaker of of Edward IV's last Parliament and Richard III's first treasurer. Sweeting was bailiff of Lady Margery's manor of Rivers Hall at Boxted. (See Andrew Hope, 'The lady and the bailiff: Lollardy among the gentry in Yorkist and Tudor England' in Lollardy and the gentry in the later Middle Ages, ed. Margaret Aston and Colin Richmond (Stroud, 1997), p. 256.
[Back to Top]Charles Joseph would later become infamous as the gaoler and suspected murderer of Richard Hunne.