vnto their parishioners, and exhorte them that they esteme this grace accordingly, and recōcile them selues to the church before the first sonday after Easter next ensuing, whiche thing I also do cōmaunde by the tenour hereof, with intimation that the sayde tyme being ones past, & they not so reconciled, euery one of them shall haue processe made against him, according to the Canons, as the cause shall require: for which purpose the pastours and Curates of euery parish shalbe commaunded by their Archdeacon, to certifie me in wryting, of euery man and womans name, that is not so reconciled. Further, herewith I do signifie and declare vnto you, that our holy father the Pope Iulius the thirde, of that name, lyke a moste tender and naturall father, hearing of the retourne and recouerye of his prodigall childe this Realme of Englande, hath him self made much ioye & gladnes hereat, and also all other true Christen Realmes haue done the lyke. Exhorting you therefore in oure Lord, not to be vnthankeful your selues, or negligent in this behalfe, but diligētly to seke for it, ioyfully to embrace it, and fruictfully to vse it, remembring with al the monition & charge whiche came from me the last yeare, concerning your comming to confession in Lent, and receiuing the Sacrament at Easter, whiche moniciō to all effectes and purposes, I haue nowe here for repeted and renewed, charging you, and also all your Curates therewith. And because all our duties is, earnestly and deuoutly to praye for the prosperous estate of oure soueraignes, the Kyng and Quene of this Realme, I do finally require and praye you, as heartely as I can, to pray for their maiesties accordingly, and specially that it may please almightie God, to sende vnto her grace a good tyme, and to make her a glad mother, whiche can not bee but vnto vs all great ioye, muche comfort, and inestimable profite. Geuen at London, the. 19. daye of the moneth of February, in the yeare of oure Lord God, after the computation of the church of England. 1554. and of my translatiō the. 16.
[Back to Top]OVr Lord Iesus Christ absolue you, and by the Apostolike autoritie to me graunted & committed, I absolue you from the sentēces of excommunication, and from all other censures and paines, into the which you be fallen, by reason of heresie, or schisme or any otherways, & I restore you vnto the vnitie of our holy mother the church, and to the communion of all Sacramentes, dispensing with you for al maner of irregularitie. And by the same autoritie, I absolue you from all your sinnes, in the name of the father, & of the sonne, & of the holy gost. Amen.
[Back to Top]In Foxe's presentation, Ferrar's sufferings under Mary are almost an anticlimax to what he endured in the reign of Edward VI. This emphasis is already apparent in the Rerum, where Foxe blames Ferrar's troubles solely on the malice of George Constantine and on the duke of Northumberland, who, Foxe maintained, hated Ferrar because he was favoured by the duke of Somerset. (These charges against Northumberland would not be repeated in any of the editions of the Acts and Monuments. This is undoubtedly due to the power and influence of Northumberland's two sons Ambrose and Robert, in Elizabeth's reign). According to Foxe, Ferrar was stripped of his bishopric and imprisoned in the Fleet until the beginning of Mary's reign. (This is demonstably inaccurate; see Brown, pp. 216-18). He remained in prison under Mary until the end of January 1555, when he was sentenced to death. He was taken to Carmarthen and burned, dying a slow death because the wood for the fire was taken from a bog and was wet. The account ends with an interesting physical description of Ferrar, describing him as short, stout and swarthy (Rerum, pp. 423-25). Unlike many detailed accounts in the Rerum, there are no documents. All of this information seems to have come from a person familiar with St David's (the burning suggests an eyewitness account) and sympathetic to Ferrar.
[Back to Top]It is reasonable to suppose that this person was responsible for the flood of information about Ferrar that washed over Foxe before the 1563 edition was printed. Except for the detail of Ferrar being burned with wet wood, nothing from the Rerum account was reprinted in 1563. The reason for this was that Foxe had an enormous cache of papers pertaining to Ferrar's case to work from. Someone had copied these papers (probably from Ferrar's records) and sent them to Foxe, presumably in an effort to vindicate the bishop. (BL, Harley 420 consists largely of the papers in this collection which Foxe did not print. They all are written in a single hand, indicating that they were copied and sent to Foxe). Foxe constructed his narrative of Ferrar in Edward VI's reign entirely from these documents. The same individual was probably also responsible for sending Foxe copies of the official documents on which Foxe based his account of Ferrar's examinations in Wales in 1555 and his degradation there. An eyewitness seems to have supplied Foxe with his account of Ferrar's examination by Gardiner.
[Back to Top]Whoever Foxe's sources for the Rerum and 1563 accounts were, they succeeded in making Foxe an ardent champion of Ferrar. Foxe's printing of thedocuments in Ferrar's case is not only detailed, but it is very partisan. Foxe printed the basic complaint which Ferrar's opponents made to the privy council, but he did not even mention a further complaint (BL, Harley 420, fol. 90r-v charging Ferrar with sedition) and an affadavit supporting it (BL, Harley 420, fol. 92r), as well as Ferrar's denial of the charge (BL, Harley 420, fol. 93r). Nor did Foxe print many of the depositions against Ferrar (BL, Harley 420, fos. 80r-89v and 95r-104v) or the depositions of 124 witnesses testifying against Ferrar (BL, Harley 420, fos. 111r-178r). Even more striking is the fact that he printed this detailed pro-Ferrar account at all; he could have simply omitted this unsavoury feud and focused on Ferrar's martyrdom under Mary. One of Ferrar's opponents was Thomas Young, the first Elizabethan archbishop of York, and this could only have increased the pressure on Foxe for silence. (One of Foxe's friends wrote to the martyrologist begging him not to discuss this aspect of Ferrar's history; the best that Foxe would do was not name Young while the archbishop was alive). Foxe seems to have been genuinely outraged at Ferrar's treatment by his canons; perhaps Foxe's friendship with John Parkhurst - Elizabeth's first bishop of Norwich and another prelate circled by sharks - influenced him. (Foxe would know about Parkhurst's troubles; he lived at Parkhurst's palace in Norwich from 1560 to 1562 and his family resided there until 1563).
[Back to Top]Except for details about Ferrar's death, all the information which Foxe would ever print on Ferrar was in the 1563 edition. In the 1570 edition all the documents pertaining to Ferrar's Edwardian ordeals were omitted except for two letters which Foxe moved to the end of his account of Ferrar. (In this edition, Foxe also erroneously declared that Bishop Goodrich of Ely was the recipient of these letters). Foxe replaced the deleted documents with a brief narrative of Ferrar's troubles under Edward VI. He also replaced the account of Ferrar's execution with a new version, obviously drawn from an eyewitness, which gave the precise date of Ferrar's death and the story that, in a demonstration of stoicism, the martyr did not move in the flames. The 1570 account of Ferrar was reprinted in the 1576 edition without change.
[Back to Top]But in the 1583 edition, Foxe restored all of the documents that had appeared in 1563 and were deleted afterwards. This appears to have been done without much care since the two letters Ferrar purportedly wrote to Goodrich were restored along with the other documents from the first edition but also printed at the end of the account, as they were in the 1570 edition. As result the letters are printed twice in 1583 (on pp. 1552-53 and 1555-56).
[Back to Top]The date is incorrectly given as 22 February in 1563.
THe next bishop, that suffered in this cataloge of blessed Martirs, after the passion of Maister Hoper, was Maister Farrar, bishop of saint Dauids in Wales, who by the fauour & good will of the
Lord Protector, was first called and promoted to that dignitye. This man I maye well call twise a martyr, not onlye for those thinges which he suffered most cōstantly in the dayes of Quene Mary, vnto the very fire, & the sheding of bloud: but also for diuers other iniuries & molestations in king Edwards time whiche this firm & constant champiō suffered most vnworthely of his enemies, after the fall of the Duke of Somerset. Of these his vexations, and troubles what was the true cause and matter therof, and what were the procedinges of both the parties, as wel of the bishop as of his aduersaries, and what his aduersaries were, the full declaration hereof here foloweth.
[Back to Top]The principall aduersaries, against Maister Ferrar Bishop of Saint Dauids in the time of King Edward were:
1. Firste, George constantine to whome the sayd bishop gaue thoffice of Registershippe by patent.
2. The second was a Doctor of law,
On 29 January 1561 Richard Pratt, a friend of the martyrologist, wrote to Foxe and asked him not to discuss Ferrar's feud with his canons as it would create scandal and encourage the catholics, particularly since Thomas Young was about to become archbishop of York (BL, Harley 416, fol. 170r-v). Foxe obliged to the extent of witholding the names of Meyricke and Young from his first edition. In the second edition, with both men dead, he supplied their names and even identified Meyricke ashaving been bishop of Bangor and Young as having been archbishop of York.
[Back to Top]On 29 January 1561 Richard Pratt, a friend of the martyrologist, wrote to Foxe and asked him not to discuss Ferrar's feud with his canons as it would create scandal and encourage the catholics, particularly since Thomas Young was about to become archbishop of York (BL, Harley 416, fol. 170r-v). Foxe obliged to the extent of witholding the names of Meyricke and Young from his first edition. In the second edition, with both men dead, he supplied their names and even identified Meyricke ashaving been bishop of Bangor and Young as having been archbishop of York.
[Back to Top]THrough the procuremente and instance of these his aduersaries, ioyning and confederate together, one Hugh Raulins priest, and Thomas Lee brother in law to the said George Constantine, did exhibit to the kings most honorable coūsell certein articles and informations,
Foxe does not supply any details of a quarrel which been festering between Ferrar and his canons long before this denunciation of Ferrar was sent to the privy council. Over a year before this document was written, Ferrar had suspended some of his leading opponents from their diocesan offices and they had appealed to the Council of the Marches. And along with the complaint made against Ferrar to the privy council, another complaint had been brought against Ferrar in the Court of Great Sessions in Carmarthen. (For the details of the feud between Ferrar and his canons, see Brown, pp. 82-185).
[Back to Top]This was originally a series of statutes enacted in 1353, 1365 and 1393, limiting appeals to the papacy by English clerics and prescribing penalties for those promoting a papal bull or excommunication in England. By Ferrar?s day it had come to be used as a legal term for any clerical usurpation of royal power or authority.
[Back to Top]This is an indictment Ferrar's opponents sent to the privy council accusing the bishop (in no less than 56 articles) of praemunire and other misdeeds. The first 18 articles consist of actual charges of praemunire (i.e., the bishop having usurped royal perogatives) and these take two forms: cases where Ferrar allegedly overrode vested rights of patronage (articles 2-4, 7, 14 and 15) and cases where Ferrar, either through ignorance or willfulness, acted illegally (articles 1, 5-6, 8-13 and 16-18). The remaining articles are intended to show that Ferrar was an unfit bishop because of a failure to enforce the religious reforms enacted by the government (articles 19-24), greed (articles 25-47) or sheer incompetence (articles 48-56). None of these were legal reasons to deprive a bishop (whereas praemunire was) but they were intended to convince the privy council that depriving Ferrar was desirable and thus reinforcea weak case. Readers desiring more background on the details behind these charges should consult Andrew J. Brown's superb monograph on Ferrar.
[Back to Top]There is a long section dealing with the stirring in Farrar's diocese under Edward. This precedes the account of Farrar's troubles under Mary and leads to a different balance in the glosses from the previous few martyrs. The many articles against Farrar are noted in the 1563 and 1583 editions only; readers are advised in 1570 and 1576 to consult a copy of 1563. The 1583 glosses seem to have been set from the 1563 version. In these glosses, Foxe occasionally uses terms supportive of Farrar, describing the charge of Praemunire against him as 'pretensed' ('Premunire pretended agaynst B. Farrar') and noting the 'crafty packing' of his opponents ('Crafty packing agaynst Farrar'). Stoical phrases such as 'stoutly standeth' are used, along with commendation of constancy ('B. Farrar stoutly stādeth vpon his truth'; 'B. Farrar standeth to his oth made to the K. agaynst the Pope'; 'A memorable example of constancie in this blessed B. & Martyr'). The familiar charge that Winchester once supported the royal supremacy is introduced when opportunity serves ('Winchesters periury touched'), and there is a repeat of the restrained drawing attention to an appeal to the cardinal ('B. Farrar appealeth from the B. of S. Dauids to the Cardinall'). There is a mistaken date in 1583 (March 32) which was correctly given as March 30 in 1570 and 1576.
[Back to Top]This is a good example of the desperate efforts of Ferrar's opponents to make a case for praemunire. Because a reference to the royal supremacy had been inadvertantly omitted from a commission Ferrar issued, his opponents were maintaining that he based his claim to episcopal authority upon 'foreign usurped laws' (i.e., papal, rather than royal, authority). This is ridiculous; Ferrar was a controversial bishop, but he was a thoroughgoing reformer.
[Back to Top]Marginalia2.Item,
Details of this dispute are in Brown, pp. 151-52.