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But it is not for his want of scholarly writing that Foxe has been blamed.
Thereat the Bishop of London was angry again, and cried out saying that it was not the custom for those who had come to answer for their misdeeds to sit. "Upon these words a fire began to heat and kindle between them; insomuch that they began to rate and revile one the other, that the whole multitude therewith disquieted began to be set on a hurry."* *Foxe, Acts and Monuments.
Even Margery was surprised to hear Master Foxe speak thus, knowing that he was aware who was listening to his words. The day closed, and the visitors were shown to such sleeping chambers as the house afforded. When all was quiet the farmer went to the cupboard and released the priest. He came forth. "I pray you, sir, that you will not betray these good people.
* P. 525, edited 1563. But Holinshed, a far more credible witness tells us that: * Chronicle, fol. ed., 1586, p. 944. Answer to Foxes assertion. There is another class 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.
A poor boy at Cambridge, John Randall, of Christ's College, a relation of Foxe the martyrologist, destroyed himself in these years in religious desperation; he was found in his study hanging by his girdle, before an open Bible, with his dead arm and finger stretched pitifully towards a passage on predestination. A story even more remarkable is connected with Bainham's execution.
He had been "troublesome to heretics," he said, and he had "done it with a little ambition;" for "he so hated this kind of men, that he would be the sorest enemy that they could have, if they would not repent." More's Life of More, p. 211. See Foxe, Vol. IV. pp. 689, 698, 705. 2 Hen V. stat 1. John Stokesley. Petition of Thomas Philips to the House of Commons: Rolls House MS. Ibid. Foxe, Vol.
Grindal handed over to Foxe the accounts of the various prosecutions for heresy sent to him by his correspondents at home, taking care, however, at the same time to warn the martyrologist against placing too much confidence in them, he himself suspending his judgment "till more satisfactory evidence came from good hands."
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.
One wonders why Foxe did not secure them for Corpus when he took the Latin books. Time would fail us to tell of all the famous Englishmen who went to study in Italy in the last years of the fifteenth century, let alone those who went and did not win fame.
Cromwell's early life as told by Foxe is a mass of fable, and the State Papers afford the only real information as to his ministry. For Sir Thomas More we have a touching life by his son-in-law, Roper. The more important documents for the religious history of the time will be found in Mr.
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