Page 58 of 131

* Hall. fol. 186. Fox, vol. i. p. 138. Burnet, vol. i p.
159.

** Articles of impeachment in Herbert. Burnet.

*** Fox. Burnet, vol i. p. 165.

Many were brought into the bishops’ courts for offences which appear trivial, but which were regarded as symbols of the party: some for teaching their children the Lord’s prayer in English; others for reading the New Testament in that language, or for speaking against pilgrimages. To harbor the persecuted preachers, to neglect the fasts of the church, to declaim against the vices of the clergy, were capital offences. One Thomas Bilney, a priest, who had embraced the new doctrine, had been terrified into an abjuration; but was so haunted by remorse, that his friends dreaded some fatal effects of his despair. At last, his mind seemed to be more relieved; but this appearing calm proceeded only from the resolution which he had taken of expiating his past offence by an open confession of the truth, and by dying a martyr to it. He went through Norfolk, teaching the people to beware of idolatry, and of trusting for their salvation either to pilgrimages, or to the cowl of St. Francis, to the prayers of the saints, or to images. He was soon seized, tried in the bishop’s court, and condemned as a relapsed heretic; and the writ was sent down to burn him. When brought to the stake, he discovered such patience, fortitude, and devotion, that the spectators were much affected with the horrors of his punishment; and some mendicant friars who were present, fearing that his martyrdom would be imputed to them, and make them lose those alms which they received from the charity of the people, desired him publicly to acquit them[*] of having any hand in his death. He willingly complied; and by this meekness gained the more on the sympathy of the people.

* Burnet, vol. i. p. 164.

Another person, still more heroic, being brought to the stake for denying the real presence, seemed almost in a transport of joy; and he tenderly embraced the fagots which were to be the instruments of his punishment, as the means of procuring him eternal rest. In short, the tide turning towards the new doctrine, those severe executions, which, in another disposition of men’s minds, would have sufficed to suppress it, now served only to diffuse it the more among the people, and to inspire them with horror against the unrelenting persecutors.

But though Henry neglected not to punish the Protestant doctrine, which he deemed heresy, his most formidable enemies, he knew, were the zealous adherents to the ancient religion, chiefly the monks, who, having their immediate dependence on the Roman pontiff, apprehended their own ruin to be the certain consequence of abolishing his authority in England. Peyto, a friar, preaching before the king, had the assurance to tell him, “that many lying prophets had deceived him; but he, as a true Micajah, warned him, that the dogs would lick his blood, as they had done Ahab’s.”[*] The king took no notice of the insult; but allowed the preacher to depart in peace. Next Sunday he employed Dr. Corren to preach before him; who justified the king’s proceedings, and gave Peyto the appellations of a rebel, a slanderer, a dog, and a traitor. Elston, another friar of the same house, interrupted the preacher, and told him that he was one of the lying prophets, who sought to establish by adultery the succession of the crown; but that he himself would justify all that Peyto had said. Henry silenced the petulant friar; but showed no other mark of resentment than ordering Peyto and him to be summoned before the council, and to be rebuked for their offence.[**] He even here bore patiently some new instances of their obstinacy and arrogance: when the earl of Essex, a privy councillor, told them that they deserved for their offence to be thrown into the Thames, Elston replied that the road to heaven lay as near by water as by land.[***]

* Strype, vol. i. p. 167.

** Collier, vol. ii. p. 86. Burnet, vol. i. p. 151.

*** Stowe, p. 562

But several monks were detected in a conspiracy, which, as it might have proved more dangerous to the king, was on its discovery attended with more fatal consequences to themselves. Elizabeth Barton, of Aldington, in Kent, commonly called the “holy maid of Kent,” had been subject to hysterical fits, which threw her body into unusual convulsions; and having produced an equal disorder in her mind, made her utter strange sayings, which, as she was scarcely conscious of them during the time, had soon after entirely escaped her memory. The silly people in the neighborhood were struck with these appearances, which they imagined to be supernatural; and Richard Masters, vicar of the parish, a designing fellow, founded on them a project, from which he hoped to acquire both profit and consideration. He went to Warham, archbishop of Canterbury, then alive; and having given him an account of Elizabeth’s revelations, he so far wrought on that prudent but superstitious prelate, as to receive orders from him to watch her in her trances, and carefully to note down all her future sayings. The regard paid her by a person of so high a rank, soon rendered her still more the object of attention to the neighborhood; and it was easy for Masters to persuade them, as well as the maid herself, that her ravings were inspirations of the Holy Ghost. Knavery, as is usual, soon after succeeding to delusion, she learned to counterfeit trances and she then uttered, in an extraordinary tone, such speeches as were dictated to her by her spiritual director. Masters associated with him Dr. Bocking, a canon of Canterbury; and their design was to raise the credit of an image of the Virgin which stood in a chapel belonging to Masters, and to draw to it such pilgrimages as usually frequented the more famous images and relics. In prosecution of this design, Elizabeth pretended revelations which directed her to have recourse to that image for a cure; and being brought before it, in the presence of a great multitude, she fell anew into convulsions: and after distorting her limbs and countenance during a competent time, she affected to have obtained a perfect recovery by the intercession of the Virgin.[*] This miracle was soon bruited abroad; and the two priests, finding the imposture to succeed beyond their own expectations, began to extend their views, and to lay the foundation of more important enterprises. They taught their penitent to declaim against the new doctrines, which she denominated heresy; against innovations in ecclesiastical government; and against the king’s intended divorce from Catharine. She went so far as to assert, that if he prosecuted that design, and married another, he should not be a king a month longer, and should not an hour longer enjoy the favor of the Almighty, but should die the death of a villain. Many monks throughout England, either from folly or roguery, or from faction, which is often a complication of both, entered into the delusion; and one Deering, a friar, wrote a book of the revelations and prophecies of Elizabeth.[**] Miracles were daily added to increase the wonder; and the pulpit every where resounded with accounts of the sanctity and inspirations of the new prophetess. Messages were carried from her to Queen Catharine, by which that princess was exhorted to persist in her opposition to the divorce; the pope’s ambassadors gave encouragement to the popular credulity; and even Fisher, bishop of Rochester, though a man of sense and learning, was carried away by an opinion so favorable to the party which he had espoused.[***]

* Stowe, p. 570. Blanquet’s Epitome of Chronicler.

** Strype, vol. i. p. 181.

*** Collier, vol. ii. p. 87

The king at last began to think the matter worthy of his attention; and having ordered Elizabeth and her accomplices to be arrested, he brought them before the star chamber, where they freely, without being put to the torture made confession of their guilt. The parliament, in the session held the beginning of this year, passed an act of attainder against some who were engaged in this treasonable imposture,[*] and Elizabeth herself, Masters, Bocking, Deering, Rich, Risby, Gold, suffered for their crime. The bishop of Rochester, Abel, Addison, Lawrence, and others were condemned for misprision of treason; because they had not discovered some criminal speeches which they heard from Elizabeth;[**] and they were thrown into prison. The better to undeceive the multitude, the forgery of many of the prophetess’s miracles was detected; and even the scandalous prostitution of her manners was laid open to the public. Those passions which so naturally insinuate themselves amidst the warm intimacies maintained by the devotees of different sexes, had taken place between Elizabeth and her confederates; and it was found that a door to her dormitory, which was said to have been miraculously opened, in order to give her access to the chapel, for the sake of frequent converse with Heaven, had been contrived by Bocking and Masters for less refined purposes.