Katherine Dowager, whose names were Powell, Fetherstone, and Abell, the whiche spectacle so happening vpon one daye, in twoo so contrary partes or factions, brought the people into a maruelous admiration and doubte of their Religion, whiche parte to folowe and take, as myght so well happen amongest ignoraunt and symple people: seyng two contrary partes so to suffer (the one for Popery the other against Popery) both at one tyme. But to remoue and take away all doubt hereafter frō the posteritie, whereby they shal the lesse maruell howe this so happened: here is to be vn- derstanded, howe the cause therof stoode and whereupon it proceaded: the cause wherof happened, by reason of a certayne diuision and discorde amongest the kynges councel, whiche were so deuyded amongest them selues in equall partes, that the one halfe semed to holde with one Religion, the other halfe with the cōtrarye.
[Back to Top]The names of whom although it were not necessary to expresse, yet beyng compelled for the settyng forth of the truthe of the story, we haue thought good here to anexe, as the certeintie thereof came to our handes.
Caunterbury. | Wynchester. | ||
Suffolke. | Duresme. | ||
Vicount Beawchamp. | Norfolke. | ||
Protestan- | Vicount Lisle. | Catholikes | Sotthampton. |
tes. | Russell Treasurer. | Anthony Broune. | |
Pagyt. | Wylliam Pawler | ||
Sadler. | Iohn Baker. | ||
Audeley. | Rych. Chaunc. of the aug. | ||
Wyngfield Vic. Chaunceller. |
THis diuision and separation amongest the councel amongest them selues, caused both these partes aboue mentioned, the one for one Religion, the other for an other, to suffer together, for as thone part of the councell called vpon the execution of Barnes Garret, and Hierome, so the other part lykewyse called vpon thexecutiō of þe lawe vpō Powel, Fetherstone, and Abell. Wherby it so happened thē to suffer death all syxe together: thre by þe fyer, & thother thre by hangyng, drawyng & quartering.
[Back to Top]This account is taken almost verbatim from that in Edward Hall and Richard Grafton, The vnion of the two noble and illustrate famelies of Lancastre & Yorke (STC 12721: London, 1548), part II, fo. 244r. Foxe, however, omits a phrase claiming that Mekins' fear was such that 'he had not cared of whom he had named'.
[Back to Top]Mekins was burned on 30 July 1541.
On the notoriety of the Mekins case, see Alec Ryrie, The Gospel and Henry VIII (Cambridge, 2003), p. 24.
Foxe's source for this episode is unknown. However, Foxe's mentor John Bale had heard independently of the case, mentioning it briefly in his The Epistle exhortatorye of an Englyshe Christiane (STC 1291: Antwerp, 1544), fo. 13v and in his Scriptorum illustrium maioris Brytanniae ... Catalogus (Basel, 1557), vol. I p. 666. In Bale's account, Spenser was a player in interludes; the companion who died with him was named John Ramsey; and the execution took place in 1542. In 1570 and subsequent editions Foxe amalgamated this information with his own. He changed 1563's generic claim that Spenser was 'getting his liuing with þe sweate of hys browes and labours of hys handes' to the more specific statement that he 'became a player in interludes', and he added Ramsey to the list of those executed, although for some reason omitting his first name. He did not adopt Bale's dating, merely claiming with characteristic imprecision that the deaths took place 'about the same tyme' as Mekins' case (ie., 1541). The real confusion arose from the second figure mentioned in 1563, Andrew Hewyt. This appears to be a confusion with the Andrew Hewet burned in 1533, but Foxe, instead of correcting the name to Ramsey, instead declared from 1570 onwards that there were three individuals executed - although both his and Bale's sources agree that there were two. Cf. 1570, p. 1376, et seq.
[Back to Top]RYchard Spenser in lyke maner priest, leauing his papistrie, toke vnto hym a wyfe getting his liuing with þe sweate of hys browes and labours of hys handes. Besides this, forsomuche as he was thought to holde a contrary opinion of the Sacrament against the decrees and lawes in those dayes, he was craftely circumuēted and put to death, being burned at Salisbury together with one Andrew Hwet in the yeare aforesayde.
[Back to Top]About this time or not much ouer, Cardinal Poole, brother to the Lorde Montagew, was attainted of hygh treason, and fled away vnto Rome, wher within a short time after he was made Cardinal of S. Mary Cosmedē
Pole was created cardinal-deacon (22 December 1536) of St Mary in Cosmedin. There are three official ranks of cardinal and Pole's rank of deacon indicates that he was considered a member of the pope's political household, working full-time in the curia. The other ranks are cardinal-bishop (who holds an actual Episcopal position in Rome) and cardinal-priest (who works in a diocese outside of Rome).
[Back to Top]Foxe leaves a great deal out of the chronology and makes it sound as if the Stokesley-Tunstal letter was the first (rather than last) official treatise in the exchanges between Pole and Henry VIII's scholars regarding the royal supremacy issue. Pole had served the king's interests in Paris with regard to the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon but, sometime after 1531 he'd changed his mind on the issue and decided instead to carry on his scholastic pursuits at Padua (at the king's expense) [for which, see The Works of Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr, 1556, 2 vols., ed. by J E Cox (Cambridge, 1844-46), ii, pp.229-31]. Henry left him in peace to about 1535 when enforcement of the royal supremacy necessitated his recall. As the king's cousin and an important man in his own right, Pole could not be allowed to remain silent on the issues (particularly given the recent executions of More and Fisher). To this end, his former student Thomas Starkey (a royal chaplain and propagandist) was to make contact and pursued Pole to return to England with a letter, the writing of which was very much under the direction of Stokesley and Thomas Cromwell [for which, see BL, Cott. MSS. Cleo. E, vi, fols.367rv ]. The full range of divorce and supremacy arguments are spelled out. Pole replied to this on 4 September 1535, in the form of a treatise entitled Pro Ecclesiasticae Unitatis Defensione which arrived in England at the worst possible time - during the Pilgrimage of Grace and Lincolnshire uprisings of 1536. The king established a four man committee to deal with Pole and his treatise - Stokesley, Cromwell, Tunstal and Starkey. Pole's treatise addressed four issues: Richard Sampson's supremacy polemic entitled Oratio quae docet hortatur admonet omnes potissimum Anglos Regiae dignitati cum primis ut obediant (1534), papal supremacy, Anne Boleyn, and Henry's need to perform penance. In the second and most important section, Pole denied Sampson's natural reason arguments as well as the humanist exegesis of the other royal apologists. Although Starkey was to have made the official response, he appealed to Stokesley and Tunstal for drafting and editing advice. His letter was sent on 13 July 1536 [see, BL, Cott. MSS. Cleo. E, vi, fols.379-83v] but proved only a prelude to the Stokesley/Tunstal letter.
[Back to Top]The letter can be found at Public Records Office, State Papers 1/113, fols.4-10r and was published as Letter to Cardinal Pole (London, 1575).
Foxe's account of the monumental acts of the Reformation Parliament necessarily focused on the 'aboliyshing of the vsurped power and iurisdiction of the bishop of Rome' rather than the establishment of the royal supremacy. The marginal gloss to the 1563 edition, however, provides the key to later historians' interpretations of these events: 'The kinge proclaimed Supreme head by act of parliament'. By the 1570 edition, however, Foxe's marginal glosses subtly altered the message to meet an anticipated objection about the status of a proclamation: 'The stile of supreme head annexed to the crowne of England' adding, for good measure: 'The popes name and memory abolished'. There were other, even more substantial changes wrought by Foxe in this passage as between the 1563 edition and its successors. In 1563, he had said almost nothing about the other, more detailed but substantial measures that accompanied the famous proclamation and which had been turned into statutes by the Reformation Parliament. In 1570, Foxe was anxious to furnish much more substantive detail on the acts in restraint of appeals, payments to Rome, the forbidden degrees, etc. Wherever possible, Foxe also substantially increased the discussion of the ecclesiastical authorities which had supported these political changes, and their scriptural and other grounds for doing so. In the process, Foxe strengthened the impression in his text that these were changes which overthrew a usurpation, justified by law and scripture.
[Back to Top]Andrew ChibiUniversity of Leicester
MarginaliaThis Epile was testified by C. Tunstal to Mathewe Archbishop of Cant. to be his own 14 days before his departure.FOr the good wyll that wee haue borne vnto you in tymes paste, as longe as you continued the kynges true subiecte, we can not a lytle lament and mourne, that ye neyther regardynge the inestimable kynde-
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