Studies from Court and Cloister Part 22

David's, who sate upon the condemnation of the blessed Martyr and Bishop Ferrar, and unjustly usurped his room, was not long after stricken by G.o.d's hand, but after such a strange sort, that his meat would not go down, but rise and pick up again, sometimes at his mouth, sometimes blown out of his nose, most horrible to behold, and so he continued till his death. Thus Foxe, followed by Thomas Beard in his Theatre of G.o.d's Judgments. But where or when his death happened, they tell us not, nor any author hitherto, only when, which Bishop G.o.dwin mentions. Now, therefore, be pleased to know that the said Bishop Morgan, retiring after his deprivation to and near Oxen, where he had several relations and acquaintance living, particularly the Owens of G.o.dstow, in the parish of Wolvercote, near to the said city, did spend the little remainder of his life in great devotion at G.o.dstow, but that he died in the condition which Foxe mentions there is no tradition among the inhabitants of Wolvercote. True it is that I have heard some discourse, many years ago, from some of the ancients of that place, that a certain bishop did live for some time, and exercised his charity and religious counsel among them, and there died; but I could never learn anything of them of the manner of his death, which being very miserable, as John Foxe saith, methinks that they should have a tradition of it, as well as of the man himself; but I say there is now none, nor was there any thirty years ago, among the most aged persons then living at that place, and therefore, whether there be anything of truth in it may justly be doubted."

The evidence of this negative tradition is certainly more convincing, than Foxes unsupported allegation of a circ.u.mstance, as unlikely to have occurred, as it was likely to be concocted by a man of his propensity and unscrupulousness. If, however, there should be any doubt of Foxes ability to concoct such a story, it will perhaps be removed by the history of the drastic refutation, which befell the similar story of the end of Grimwood. This, Anthony a Wood proceeds to record in a pa.s.sage immediately after the one above quoted.

"In the very same chapter and leaf concerning the severe punishment upon persecutors of G.o.d's People, he hath committed a most egregious falsity in reporting that one Grimwood, of Higham, in Suffolk, died in a miserable manner, for swearing and bearing false witness against one John Cooper, a carpenter of Watsam in the same county, for which he lost his life. The miserable death of the said Grimwood was, as John Foxe saith thus: That WHEN HE WAS IN HIS LABOUR, STAKING UP A GOSSE OF CORN, HAVING HIS HEALTH, AND FEARING NO PERIL, SUDDENLY HIS BOWELS FELL OUT OF HIS BODY, AND IMMEDIATELY MOST MISERABLY HE DIED. Now it so fell out that in the reign of Elizabeth, one Prit* became parson of the parish where the said Grimwood dwelt, and preaching against perjury, being not acquainted with his parishioners, cited the said story of Foxe, and it happened that Grimwood being alive, and in the said church, he brought an action upon the case, against the parson, but Judge Anderson, who sate at the a.s.sizes in the county of Suffolk, did adjudge it not maintainable, because it was not spoken maliciously."**

* Or p.r.i.c.k.

** Anthony d Wood, Athenae Oxoniensis, vol. i., p. 691.

That the action was not maintainable on the ground of malice, as against the parson, may have been true, but Foxe cannot reasonably be acquitted, for although he went into Suffolk professedly to investigate the matter, he never made any alteration in his story in subsequent editions, and the very latest impression of the Acts and Monuments perpetuates the lie and slander.

Thirty years after the death of Sir Thomas More, Foxe undertook to collect all the traditional gossip afloat concerning the Chancellor's alleged treatment of John Tewkesbury and James Bainham, for heresy.

Tewkesbury was a leather-seller of London, and Foxe says that he was sent to Sir Thomas Mores house at Chelsea to be examined, and that "there he lay in the porter's lodge, hand, foot, and head in the stocks, six days without release. Then was he carried to Jesus' Tree in his privy garden, where he was whipped, and also twisted in his brows with a small rope, that the blood started out of his eyes, and yet would not accuse no man. Then was he let loose for a day, and his friends thought to have him at liberty the next day. After this he was sent to be racked in the Tower, till he was almost lame, and there promised to recant.*

* Acts and Monuments, vol. iv., p. 689; Pratt's ed.

The truth of the matter was, however, that as Tewkesbury was examined for the first time on the 8th May 1529, and immediately afterwards recanted, the event occurred several months before Sir Thomas More became Lord Chancellor; and therewith falls to the ground the story of Tewkesbury's being tortured in Mores garden, the punishment of heretics being part of the Lord Chancellor's office.

James Bainham was a lawyer, and Foxe declares that he was whipped at the Tree of Truth in Mores garden, and was then sent to the Tower to be racked, "and so he was, Sir Thomas More being present himself, till in a manner he had lamed him." Bainham, like Tewkesbury, recanted, and both of them bewailed and retracted their recantations, first before their friends in a Protestant gathering in Bow Lane, and afterwards in a Catholic Church, in consequence of which, according to Foxe, both were burned. But a part of what Foxe wrote about Tewkesbury in one edition of the Acts and Monuments he omitted in another, patching it on to Bainham's story, thus stultifying himself as regards both stories,*

and affording us another signal ill.u.s.tration of the irresponsible and unscrupulous way in which he could deal with evidence.

* Vol. iv., p. 702; and Appendix, p. 769; Pratt's ed.

He further attributed to More the death of John Frith, who suffered death in 1533, a year after Sir Thomas had laid down his office, although in his Apology, the exchancellor referred to Frith as being then in the Tower, not committed by him but by "the King's Grace and his Council."*

* Apology, p. 887.

Foxe might easily, had he been so inclined, have verified these things by reference to the thirty-sixth chapter of the above-mentioned Apology, in which More answered the lies "neither few nor small that many of the blessed brethren have made and daily yet make by me." He goes on to say:--

"Divers of them have said that of such as were in my house while I was chancellor, I used to examine them with torments, causing them to be bound to a tree in my garden, and there piteously beaten. And this tale had some of those brethren so caused to be blown about, that a right worshipful friend of mine did of late, within less than this fortnight, tell unto another near friend of mine that he had of late heard much speaking thereof. What cannot these brethren say that can be so shameless to say thus? For of very truth, albeit that for a great robbery, or a heinous murder, or sacrilege in a church, with carrying away the pix with the Blessed Sacrament, or villainously casting it out, I caused sometimes such things to be done by some officers of the Marshalsea, or of some other prisons, with which ordering of them, and without any great hurt that afterwards should stick by them, I found out and repressed many such desperate wretches, as else had not failed to have gone farther; yet saving the sure keeping of heretics, I never did cause any such thing to be done to any of them in all my life except only twain."

Of these two instances he first records one relating to a child who was a servant in his house. The boy's father had taught him "his ungracious heresy against the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar," which heresy the boy began to teach another child in Mores house. Thereupon, More caused a servant of his "to stripe him like a child" before the whole household, "for amendment of himself and example of such others." The other case was that of a man who, "after that he had fallen into that frantic heresy, fell soon after into plain open frenzy besides." The man was confined in Bedlam, and when discharged went about disturbing public service in churches, and committing acts of great indecency.

Devout, religious folk besought the Chancellor to restrain him, and accordingly, one day when he came wandering by Mores door, he caused him to be taken by the constables, bound to a tree in the street before the whole town, "and there they striped him with rods till he waxed weary, and somewhat longer." More ends by saying, "And verily, G.o.d be thanked, I hear none harm of him now. And of all that ever came in my hands for heresy, as help me G.o.d, saving [as I said] the sure keeping of them, had never any of them stripe or stroke given them, so much as a fillip on the forehead."

He then goes on to disprove the truth of a story spread about by Tindal, concerning the beating in his garden of a man named Segar. This story Foxe evidently confused with the fable of Tewkesbury, which thus completely crumbles to pieces; for as Sir James Mackintosh in his Life of More says:

"This statement [More's Apology] so minute, so easily contradicted if in any part false, was made public after his fall from power, when he was surrounded by enemies, and could have no friends but the generous.

He relates circ.u.mstances of public notoriety, or at least so known to all his household, which it would have been rather a proof of insanity than of imprudence to have alleged in his defence if they had not been indisputably and confessedly true . . . Defenceless and obnoxious as More then was, no man was hardy enough to dispute his truth. Foxe was the first, who, thirty years afterwards, ventured to oppose it in a vague statement, which we know to be in some respects inaccurate." *

* Pp. 101, 105.

The story of the death of Robert Packington, mercer, of London, has also provided Foxe with fertile soil for raising his usual crop of calumny. The man was shot dead one very misty morning, in Cheapside, according to most chroniclers in 1556, Foxe says in 1558, as he was crossing the road from his house to a church on the opposite side, where he intended to hear Ma.s.s. Many persons were suspected of the murder, but none were found guilty. Hall, Grafton, and Bale all tell the story, but the martyrologist added thereto an accusation against an innocent person, which, although satisfactorily refuted by Holinshed, remains in the pages of the Acts and Monuments to this day. Foxe says:--

"The murtherer so covertly was concealed, till at length by the confession of Doctor Incent, Dean of St. Paul's, in his deathbed it was known, and by him confessed that he was the author thereof, by hiring an Italian for sixty crowns or thereabouts to do the feat. For the testimony whereof, and also of the repentant words of the said Incent, the names, both of them which heard him confess it, and of them which heard the witnesses report it, remains yet in memory to be produced if need required."*

* P. 525, edited 1563.

But Holinshed, a far more credible witness tells us that:--

"At length the murtherer indeed was condemned at Banbury, in Oxfordshire, to die for a felony which he afterwards committed; and when he came to the gallows in which he suffered, he confessed that he did this murther [that of Robert Packington], and till that time he was never had in any suspicion thereof."*

* Chronicle, fol. ed., 1586, p. 944. Answer to Foxes a.s.sertion. Also Appendix to Gough's Narratives, pp. 296, 297.

There is another cla.s.s of anecdote in the Acts and Monuments, the errors of which do not lie so much in the facts of the story as in the oblique vision of Foxe himself, in regarding the dramatis personae, as heroes. Thus, a madman named Collins, who, entering a church during Ma.s.s, seized his dog at the Elevation, and held it over his head, showing it to the people in derision, is accounted "as one belonging to the holy company of saints."*

* Acts and Monuments, vol. v., p. 25; Pratt's ed.

Cowbridge, who was burned at Oxford, was one who would in these days be called a criminal lunatic, but Foxe regarded him as a holy martyr. The horrible story of the " martyrdom " of three women of Guernsey rests entirely on Foxes authority. It was immediately contradicted. Foxe replied, and Father Persons refuted his reply. It transpired on investigation that all three women were hanged as thieves, their bodies being afterwards burned; one of them had led an openly immoral life.

Machyn and Wriothesley chronicle an outbreak of fanaticism on Easter Sunday 1555. An ex-monk named Flower rushed into St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, while the priest, Sir John Sleuther, was administering Communion to his parishioners. Foxe tells the tale succinctly:--

"The said Flower, upon Easter Day last past, drew his wood knife, and strake the priest upon the head, hand, and arm, who being wounded therewith, and having a chalice with consecrated hosts therein in his hand, they were sprinkled with the said priest's blood."*

* Ibid. vol. vii., p. 75.

The only mistake which Foxe here makes is in saying that the priest was Sir John Cheltham. The would-be a.s.sa.s.sin harangued his victim before dealing the blow, and then struck home so forcibly that the priest fell as if dead. A tumult arose, the mult.i.tude thinking that the Spaniards were attacking them. Flower was apprehended, tried, and burned for heresy and sedition, on the spot now called the Broad Sanctuary. His claim to swell Foxe's calendar of "martyrs" rests solely on the motive of his murderous a.s.sault, namely, outrage of the Blessed Sacrament.

Another martyr of Flower's kidney was William Gardiner, who was living at Lisbon in 1552 as agent of an English mercantile house.

Foxe describes his exploits and the consequences thereof as "The history, no less lamentable than notable, of William Gardiner, an Englishman suffering most constantly in Portugal for the testimony of G.o.ds truth." Gardiner's admiring biographer relates that his hero twice entered a church (probably Lisbon Cathedral) with intent to do some notable thing in the king's sight and presence. The first time was on the occasion of a royal marriage, but the throng was so great that he could not get near the altar. However, on the following Sunday, "the said William was present early in the morning, very cleanly apparelled, even of purpose, that he might stand near the altar without repulse.

Within a while cometh the king with all his n.o.bles. Then Gardiner setteth himself as near the altar as he might, having a Testament in his hand, which he diligently read upon and prayed, until the time was come that he had appointed to work his feat." This time was just before the Communion of the priest, who was the Cardinal Archbishop of Lisbon.

Gardiner sprang forward, s.n.a.t.c.hed the consecrated Host from his hand, trod it underfoot, and overturned the chalice. The first effect of this outrage was to strike the clergy and congregation dumb with amazement, horror, and consternation. In Foxe's words, "this matter at first made them all abashed." But on recovering their senses, the people gave vent to their indignation in shouts and cries of vengeance. A dagger was drawn, and Gardiner was wounded in the shoulder. The man who struck him was about to deal another blow, when he was prevented by the king himself. Gardiner thereupon, being in the hands of the guards, impudently harangued the people, and told them that "if he had done anything which were displeasant unto them, they ought to impute it unto no man but unto themselves, who so irreverently used the Holy Supper of the Lord unto so great idolatry, not without great ignominy unto the church, violation of the sacrament, and the peril of their own souls, except they repented."

The Portuguese, entirely inexperienced in this kind of fanaticism, thought that Gardiner must be a political agent, with designs on the safety of the realm. As he would confess nothing of this sort, they put him on the rack, in order to extract from him secrets of a seditious nature. At length, as it was clear that heresy and sacrilege were the crimes in which he exulted, they burned him as a heretic, he maintaining, according to Foxe, his "G.o.dly mind" to the end, declaring even in the flames that "he had done nothing whereof he did repent him."*

*Acts and Monuments, vi. 277; Cattley's ed.

Foxe incidently bears witness to the edifying manner in which the Portuguese a.s.sisted at Ma.s.s, the people standing "with great devotion and silence, praying, looking, kneeling, and knocking [beating their b.r.e.a.s.t.s in token of compunction], their minds being fully bent and set, as it is the manner, upon the external sacrament."*

* Ibid.

The story of Bertrand Le Blas, the silk-weaver of Dornick who signalised himself in the same riotous manner in 1555, is said to have ended in the same way, Le Blas declaring "that if it were a thousand times to be done he would do it; and if he had a thousand lives he would give them all in that quarrel."*

* Acts and Monuments, vi. 393.

But these are all ex pane statements of Foxe. He is thinking of nothing but of pointing his own particular moral and of adorning his own tale.

Historically, his evidence is valueless unless supported by more careful witnesses. He professes to chronicle the martyrdom at Newent, on the 25th September 1556, of "John Horne and a woman"; but Deighton, a friendly critic, pointed out that this story was nothing more or less than an amplification of the burning of Edward Horne, which Foxe had already recorded as having taken place on the 25th September 1558, and that no woman suffered at either of these times. Such instances might be pointed out ad infinitum.