The Burning Time

by Virginia Rounding

  After her conviction, Joan was imprisoned for more than a year and for some of that time she was held in Lord Rich’s house in St Bartholomew’s, where both Archbishop Cranmer and Bishop Nicholas Ridley of London made efforts to persuade her back to mainstream Protestantism. But she was adamant in her opinions and would not be moved; as Rich himself (during the trial of a later martyr, John Philpot) described Joan’s state of mind when she was his enforced house-guest, ‘she was so high in the spirit that they could do nothing with her for all their learning’. These efforts on the part of Cranmer and Ridley (according to Rich, ‘my Lord of Canterbury and Bishop Ridley resorted almost daily unto her’) suggest considerable reluctance to carry out the sentence of execution but Joan’s refusal to compromise left them (they felt) with no alternative.

  Joan was burnt in Smithfield on 2 May 1550. After her death, further attempts were made to discredit her, her views being described by Latimer and others as ‘Arian’ – that is, heretical in denying the divinity of Christ (though in fact she appears to have been doing the opposite and denying his humanity).

  John Deane was very close to these events. Not only did the burning take place outside his church, but he would have known about Joan being held in his patron’s house in his parish – maybe he even met her – and he would have seen the comings and goings of the prelates in their attempts to dissuade Joan from her heretical beliefs. No wonder if he recognized the value of conformity and of obeying the instructions of the hierarchy, even if the current instructions contradicted those that had been issued previously. Conformity in the month following Joan’s burning included replacing the altar in the church with a ‘table’ for the receiving of Holy Communion. The only City of London church to stand out against this directive was St Nicholas Cole Abbey.

  Not long after Joan’s burning, in the summer of 1550, came the long-anticipated definitive (for the time being) statement on the Eucharist, with the publication of Archbishop Cranmer’s Defence of the true and Catholic doctrine of the body and blood of our saviour Christ. Cranmer had been drafting this book as early as the autumn of 1548, and he enlarged upon it in 1551 when he wrote an answer to an attack published by his rival, the incarcerated former bishop Stephen Gardiner. In his Answer to Gardiner, Cranmer affirmed that a spiritual eucharistic presence is granted by grace only to the elect believer, not to everyone who receives bread and wine. That would answer the mouse question posed to Anne Askew in her examinations under the previous orthodoxy: if only the elect believer receives the eucharistic presence in spirit (which was very much Anne’s view), then a mouse eating the host would not be receiving it. That answer would not have satisfied her interrogators at the time the question was addressed to Anne.

  George van Parris, the second person to be burnt by the Edwardian authorities, was a Flemish immigrant to London, about whom little is known. He may have been a surgeon who, after fleeing his native Flanders, settled in France before travelling on to London, where he is thought to have joined the London Strangers’ church, founded in 1550. He was arraigned before Cranmer and other commissioners in April 1551, with Miles Coverdale acting as interpreter. He was condemned for Arianism (having declared his belief that God the Father only is God, and that Christ is not very God) on 7 April, and executed at Smithfield just over a fortnight later.

  John Foxe, the hagiographer of Protestant saints, had much difficulty in dealing with these two martyrs of the Edwardian reign. As someone who strongly disapproved of execution for religious reasons, he did not wish to acknowledge the fact that Protestants had burnt anyone – let alone that they had burnt people who could also be defined as Protestants, even though their beliefs diverged considerably from the mainstream. In consequence Foxe said very little about the deaths of Joan Boucher and George van Parris in his English editions of Acts and Monuments, confining himself to the comment that they had died ‘for certain articles not much necessary here to be rehearsed’.

  With the views of Anne Askew and fellow Protestants now constituting the new orthodoxy, many reformers were returning from exile, including John Bale, who had edited Anne’s examinations. Bale was recorded as living in the Duchess of Richmond’s house in London in 1548; on 26 June 1551 he was made Rector of Bishopstoke in Hampshire by John Ponet, Bishop of Winchester, and in the same year he was made Vicar of Swaffham. On 15 August 1552 when he met the King at Southampton, he was promised the Irish bishopric of Ossory, and formally nominated to that see on 22 October. This was connected to Northumberland’s plan to convert the Irish to Protestantism.

  Another man who made his mark during this period when Protestantism appeared to have triumphed, and whom we will encounter in less happy circumstances under Mary I, was the Mancunian John Bradford, born in about 1510 to parents of gentle birth. He attended Manchester Grammar School as a boy and was next heard of working as paymaster under Sir John Harrington of Exton, Rutlandshire, the vice treasurer of the English army in France, between 1544 and 1547. (In this job Bradford is likely to have encountered the seemingly ubiquitous Richard Rich, as he was Harrington’s superior for a few months in 1544.) Bradford served as Harrington’s assistant in Boulogne where Harrington’s responsibilities included looking after the King’s interests and properties there. Bradford’s time in Boulogne did not go entirely smoothly; allegations were made of financial irregularity, involving both himself and his employer. Bradford, though alleged to have taken the sum of £140 out of the royal treasury without Harrington’s knowledge (a more reliable version of what occurred is that Bradford falsified the army’s records, with Harrington’s consent, and thereby cheated the government of a considerable sum of money), extricated himself from trouble at the time but his (mis)-adventures in Boulogne seem to have left him with a permanent sense of guilt and the desire to make atonement. Leaving Boulogne in 1547, Bradford enrolled on 8 April of that year at the Inner Temple.

  Around the same time he experienced a religious conversion, the crucial roles being played by Thomas Sampson who stimulated his interest in theology and by Bishop Hugh Latimer, whose fiery preaching first woke in him the need to make reparation for his dubious financial activities in France. There does appear to have been some collusion with Harrington at the time of the unauthorized transaction or fraudulent activity, as Bradford spent some considerable effort, between about February 1548 and February 1550, in persuading Harrington to return the money, which eventually he did. Bradford himself sold a number of his valuables and, abandoning the law, devoted himself to the study of the scriptures. In the early summer of 1548, Bradford gained admission to St Catherine’s College, Cambridge, was awarded the degree of Master of Arts in October 1549 and by the following month had become a fellow of Pembroke. During his time in Cambridge he became a close associate of a number of Protestant scholars and theologians, including the Strasbourg theologian, Martin Bucer, who came to Cambridge in 1549, having been exiled to England. It was Bucer who encouraged Bradford to become a preacher, while Bradford – who never felt worthy of his mission – protested that he still needed to study. Others disagreed, however, and on 10 August 1550 the Bishop of London, Nicholas Ridley, ordained him deacon, gave him a preaching licence, and made him one of his own chaplains. On St Bartholomew’s day (24 August) 1551, he became a prebendary of St Paul’s Cathedral and by the end of the year he was one of six chaplains-in-ordinary to the King. Of these six chaplains, two would at any time be serving at court while the other four travelled around the country, preaching reformation; the speed at which Bradford, who had come to theological studies fairly late in life, was drawn into this elite of Protestant preachers suggests how gifted an orator he was. He spent some time preaching in Lancashire and Cheshire in 1552, basing much of his ministry in his native Manchester, but also visiting Liverpool, Bolton, Stockport and Westchester. He was particularly effective in southern Lancashire, where he made many converts. Foxe describes his physical appearance as ‘somewhat tall and slender, spare of body, of a faint sanguine colour, with an auburn bea
rd’.

  The Reverend John Cardmaker, Vicar of St Bride’s Fleet Street and prebendary of Wells Cathedral, was another larger-than-life character who flourished under Edward. Cardmaker had been born in about 1496 in Exeter, and was admitted underage to the Franciscan order. He spent sixteen years studying in Cambridge and Oxford, receiving the degree of Bachelor of Theology from Oxford in 1533. By the following year he was Warden of the Franciscans in Exeter, but during that same year he was converted to the reformist cause after hearing Hugh Latimer preach. He himself received a preaching licence from Thomas Cromwell in 1536 and was assigned to preach to the Crutched Friars in London, after the authorities had been informed that the friars were denying the royal supremacy. Cardmaker left the Franciscans later that year and subsequently married a widow, Catherine Testwood, which action showed how closely he was allied to the reformed cause. From 1537 he received several benefices, while continuing to preach in the London area. He was one of those quite prepared to speak out, almost violently, against the Mass. In one sermon, preached at St Bride’s in 1540, he declared that it was ‘as profitable to hear Mass and see the sacrament as to kiss Judas’ mouth’. He was interrogated in 1546, the year of Anne Askew’s execution, as a supporter of Edward Crome, the evangelical Rector of St Mary Aldermary, whose sermon had created such a furore that year. During the reign of Edward VI, Cardmaker became one of the most prominent Protestant preachers in London, continuing to be uncompromising in his statements about the Mass, another notable remark being made in a lecture at St Paul’s on 20 September 1549, and recorded by the Greyfriars chronicler: ‘If God were a man, he was a six or seven foot of length, with the breadth, and if it be so how can it be that he should be in a piece of bread in a round cake on the altar?’ (His assertion that if God were a man he would be at least six foot high and wide seems about as ridiculous as the idea that God should be contained in a cake, but perhaps the sense of his remark has been lost in transcription.)

  Cardmaker, never one to toe the party line, supported Somerset in October 1549 while the City authorities (St Bride’s being within the City) were slowly committing themselves to the other side. He rallied his own congregation to Somerset, in the name of Protestantism, fearing that a coup against Somerset would lead to the repeal of the reforms that had already been made. In this case at least he was proved wrong.

  In 1551 the normally cautious Lord Rich came as close as he ever did to catastrophe. Until late November of that year he had presided, as Lord Chancellor, in the Court of Chancery, dealing with all business there without assistance. Though by then he had not been practising at the bar for many years, he had kept up his legal knowledge by attending the mootings in the Middle Temple and by acting as Chancellor of the Court of Augmentations where he had had to hear and decide various legal questions, as he had also done as a privy councillor. But on 26 November a commission was issued to Beaumont, the Master of the Rolls, to hear causes in his absence, an indication that Rich was seeking to make himself less visible. The reason for his anxiety was that he had allowed himself to become entangled in a plot by the former Lord Protector Somerset (who had been released from the Tower in early 1550 and reinstated as a member of the Privy Council) to wrest power back from Northumberland. This plot having failed, Somerset was now to be tried for felony and Rich, as Lord Chancellor, was expected to be created Lord High Steward in order to preside at his trial. But to play such a prominent part could make him vulnerable, or so he seems to have feared, in that his own ambiguous position might be exposed to scrutiny. This was why he organized a commission, authorizing the Master of the Rolls and others to hear causes for him in Chancery, and obtained Northumberland’s permission for someone else to be appointed Lord High Steward. He privately informed Somerset that he had withdrawn from the trial out of friendship for his ‘ancient friend’ (such a loyal action, if it were genuine, would have been a first for Rich), but in reality he had no wish to align himself with either side at this point, as it was too dangerous. His anxiety was considerable, and justified, rumours circulating that the Lord Chancellor himself might be the next to be conveyed to the Tower. One of the stories being told of him was that he had sent a secret message of support to ‘the Duke’, meaning Somerset, but that the messenger had misunderstood and delivered the incriminating letter to the wrong Duke (Norfolk) who had informed Northumberland of its contents. While such carelessness sounds most unlike Rich, that such a story should be told of him does demonstrate his reputation for treachery and suggests that he was in a precarious position.

  And so, like many politicians after him, Rich took refuge in alleged ill-health. He claimed to be very ill indeed, and certainly he must have judged his situation to be life-threatening, for he now voluntarily resigned the post he had been so determined to secure only four years previously, the lord chancellorship. He shut himself up in his house at St Bartholomew’s and wrote to tell the King and Northumberland that he was mortally ill and could not even get as far as Whitehall or St James’s Palace to deliver up the Great Seal. Northumberland, along with the Marquess of Winchester and others, came in person to collect it on 21 December 1551, Rich declaring that he was now devoting all his thought and energy towards preparations for ‘a better world’. The Great Seal was delivered to the King at Westminster. Rich was succeeded as Lord Chancellor by Thomas Goodrich, the Bishop of Ely.

  Even after Somerset’s execution on 22 January 1552, it was widely rumoured that Rich would be imprisoned, but his lying low had its desired effect and no action was taken against him. He remained a privy councillor but rarely turned up to meetings of the Council for the rest of Edward’s reign. He was made Lord Lieutenant of Essex on 16 May 1552 and returned to that county, avoiding being in London. He absented himself from the Parliament of 1552, again claiming sickness, and he was in fact the only privy councillor to absent himself from a session of Parliament during Edward’s reign; in an astute political move, he appointed the Duke of Northumberland to act as his proctor.

  If Rich furnished John Deane with an example of how to make the most of the opportunities presented by the dissolution of the monasteries, he also showed him that it was possible to survive in these perilous times. Deane never became sufficiently closely involved in politics or controversy to need to emulate Rich’s strategic illness (it not being the policy under Edward to purge City clergy who had served under the previous administration, but merely to fill vacancies that occurred with reformers), but he must nevertheless at some point have taken a conscious decision to do his best to survive. In their determination both to stay alive and to play a part in their society (though those parts were very different, Deane’s focus being primarily on service rather than on profiting himself), it could be argued that both men were more in tune with their times than those who refused to compromise and who were prepared to kill or be killed for their convictions. If this was a case of the survival of the fittest, then it was men like Deane and Rich who were ‘fit’, rather than their less adaptable, if more obviously heroic, contemporaries. It is worth remembering that it was not only works of theology that were being written at this period, and a work which encapsulates something of both Rich’s and Deane’s viewpoint (though it is unlikely that either would have known it at the time) was Il Galateo by the Florentine Giovanni Della Casa, published in Venice in 1558 and written between 1551 and 1555. Il Galateo, which concerns the rules of polite behaviour, was written in the wake of the collapse of the Italian city states, when the former ruling classes had become employees of the court bureaucracies, and a sort of swashbuckling valour was perhaps becoming less important than the more gentle arts of survival. Della Casa told his readers: ‘it is advisable for us to obey not what is the best but what is the modern custom, just as we obey even those laws which are less than good until the state or whoever has the power to do so changes them’. Della Casa stressed the Aristotelian quality of mediocritas, the ‘golden mean’, as necessary for success, and in this sense we can see both Rich and Deane as ‘
mediocre’ in their pursuit of the golden mean as the most appropriate modus vivendi for their time and place. It is also worth considering the question posed by Joseph Lemuel Chester in his 1861 monograph about the martyr John Rogers: ‘It is easy enough to say what we would or would not have done, in such a case, at the present day; but the real question is, what should we have said and done, if we had been the actors in those times and under those circumstances?’