next ensuing; they then coming homeward, being full of hatred against the truth, and desirous to get promotion, without any such commandment of the Justices (as far as we can learn), took counsel one with another how to attach the said John Noyes without any more delay. 'This divellish enterprise agreed upon, chiefly through the counsel of Master Thomas Lovell, Wolfren Dowsing, and Nicolas Stannard aforesaid, with expedition his house was beset, on both sides. This done, they found the said John Noyes on the backside of the said house going outward. And Nicholas Stannard called to the said John, and said, Whither goest thou? and he said, To my neighbours. And the said Nicholas Stannard said, Your Master hath deceived you; you must go with us But the said John Noyes answered, No, but take you heed your Master deceive you not. And so they took him and carried him to the Justices the next day. After his appearance and sundry causes alleged, the Justices and the Sherif together cast him into Eye dungeon, and there he lay a certain time. And then was carried from thence to Norwich, and so came before the Bishop, where were ministered unto him these positions following: now. 'I. Whether he believed that the ceremonies used in the church were good and godly, to stir up men's minds to devotion. '2. Item, whether he believed the Pope to be the supreme Head of the Church here in earth. '3. Item, whether he believed the body of our Lord Jesus Christ to be in the sacrament of the altar under the forms of bread and wine, after the words of consecration. 'Whereunto he answered, that he thought the natural body of Christ to be only in Heaven and not in the Sacrament. 'For the which, sentence at last was read by the Bishop against him, in the presence of these there sitting the same time, D. Dunning, Chancellor, Sir W. Woodhouse, Sir Thomas Woodhouse, P. George Heyden, P. Spenser, W. Farrer, Aldermen of Norwich, P. Thurston, Winesden, with divers others. More of his examination than this came not to our hands. 'In the meantime his brother-in-law, one Nicholas Fiske of Dennington, going to comfort him at such time as he remained prisoner in the Guildhall of Norwich, after Christian exhortation, asked him if he did not fear death when the Bishop gave judgment against him, considering the terror of the same. And the said John answered: he thanked God he feared death no more at that time than he or any other did, being at liberty. Then the said Nicholas required him to show the cause of his condemnation. Upon which request the said John Noyes writ with his own hand as followeth : 'I said, quoth he, that I could not believe, that in the Sacrament of the Altar there is the natural body of Christ, that same body that was born of the Virgin Mary. But I said, that the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ is received of Christian people in the remembrance of Christ's death, as a spiritual food, if it be ministered according to Christ's institution. 'But they said I could not tell what spiritual meant. 'The Bishop said that the sacrament was God, and must be worshipped as God. So said the Chancellor also. 'Then answered I, My Lord, I cannot so believe. 'Then, quoth the Bishop, why? Then say thou dost believe. Notwithstanding these collusions could not prevail. 'Now being condemned he was sent again from Norwich to Eye prison, and upon the 21st day of September, in the year aforesaid, about midnight, he was brought from Eye to Laxfield to be burned, and on the next day morning was brought to the stake, where was ready against his coming the foresaid Justice, Master Thurston, one Mr. Waller then being under Sheriff, and Master Thomas Lovell being high constable, as is before expressed, the which commanded men to make ready all things meet for that sinful purpose. Now the fire in most places of the street was put out, saving a smoke was espied by the said Thomas Lovell proceeding from the top of a chimney, in which house the Sheriff and Grannow, his man, went, and brake open the door, and thereby got fire, and brought the same to the place of execution. When John Noyes came to the place where he should be burned, he kneeled down, and said the 50th Psalm ['Have mercy on me, O Lord,' etc., is Psalm 1. in the Vulgate] with other prayers, and then they making haste bound him to the stake, and being bound, the said Noyes said, Fear not them that can kill the body, but fear Him that can kill both body and soul, and cast it into everlasting fire. 'When he saw his sister weeping and making moan for him, he bade her that she should not weep for him, but weep for her sins. 'Then one Nicholas Cadman being Hastlar, a valiant champion in the Pope's affairs, brought a fagot and set against him; and the said John Noyes took up the fagot and kissed it, and said: Blessed be the time that ever I was born to come to this. 'Then he delivered his Psalter to the under Sheriff, desiring him to be good to his wife and children, and to deliver to her that same book, and the Sheriff promised him that he would, notwithstanding he never as yet performed his promise. Then the said John Noyes said to the people: They say they can make God of a piece of bread, believe them not. 'Then said he, Good people, bear witness, that I do believe to be saved by the merits and passion of Jesus Christ, and not by mine own deeds; and so the fire was kindled, and burned about him. Then he said: Lord, have mercy upon me; Christ, have mercy upon me; Son of David, have mercy upon me. "And so he yielded up his life, and when his body was burned, they made a pit to bury the coals and ashes, and amongst the same they found one of his feet that was un burned, whole up to the ankle, with the hose on, and that they buried with the rest. 'Now while he was a-burning, there stood one John Jarvis by, a man's servant of the same Town, a plain fellow, which said: Good Lord, how the sinews of his arms shrink up. And there stood behind him one Grannow and Benet, being the Sheriff's men, and they said to their master, that John Jarvis said, What villein wretches are these. And their master bade lay hand on him, and they took him and pinioned him, and carried him before the Justice that same day, and the Justice did examine him of the words aforesaid; but he denied them, and answered that he said nothing but this: Good Lord, how the sinews of his arms shrink up. But for all this the Justice did bind his father, and his master, in £5 a piece, that he should be forthcoming at all times. And on the Wednesday next he was brought again before the Justices, P. Thurston and P. Kene, they sitting at Fressingfield in Hoxne Hundred, and there they did appoint and command, that the said John Jarvis should be set in the Stocks the next Market day, and whipped about the Market naked. But his master, one William Jarvis, did after crave friendship of the constables, and they did not set him in the Stocks till Sunday morning, and in the afternoon they did whip him about the Market with a dog whip, having three cords, and so they let him go. 'Some do give out that John Jarvis was whipped for saying that Nicholas Cadman was Noyes' Hastler, that is, such an one as maketh and hasteth the fire.' The sufferings of relatives, of parents and children, of wives and friends, during three years and a half (February, 1555, to the autumn of 1558) must have been very great. Two hundred and seventy-seven persons were burnt altogether, and thirty-six in Suffolk alone. Shortly before Noyes' date we find in Bryce : 'When Abbes, which fained a recanting, Did wofully wepe and deplore ; When he at Bery was done to death, We wishte,' etc. In February, 1555-56, two Ipswich women are mentioned; in March, 1558, Dale 'disseast [deceased] in Bery gaile'; in July, Peckes, Cotton, Wright and Slade, were burnt at Bramford; in November, Alexander Geche and Elizabeth Launson at Ipswich, and the brothers Davy and Philip Humfrey at Bury. The verse which commemorates these three is the last but one of Bryce's dirge. Naming Canterbury as the last scene of the frying' of martyrs, he ends with: 'But six daies after these were put to death Three persons were also burnt in Beccles market-place. A Roman Catholic friend of mine says that of all the cravens the world ever saw it is hard to find a worse case than that of the Marian nobles and gentry. Their religious zeal sufficed for action in these horrors; but never a square inch of land or an ounce of lead or bell-metal did they give up. Mary herself desired much in the way of restitution. The valuable site and lands of Bury Abbey, however, were in the Crown during the whole of her reign. Her adherents Bedingfeld and Freston held, the one Eye and Redlingfield, the other Mendham and Wickham Skeith. Jerningham, if he held St. Olave's, at any rate paid for it. John Eyre, of unknown theological views, impartially dabbled in this kind of property under Mary and Elizabeth, consistently looking after his worldly possessions. The list of grantees contains several stock Suffolk names of the period. One view which seems to prevail among our Roman friends, who see that the reign of Mary constitutes a fearful chasm which must in some way be bridged over before a reconciliation is possible, is that the burning of such men as Noyes was inexcusable, but that of the Rowland Taylor class excusable. Weavers and ploughmen knew no better, and ought to have been let alone. Doctors in the Faculties, Masters of Arts, clerks |