ever, escaped in May to the house of Bishop De Quadra, the Spanish ambassador, whose chaplain sheltered him and enabled him to make his way to Flanders (ib. pp. 323–5). For this proceeding De Quadra was taken to task by the privy council, but denied all knowledge of the affair.
In Flanders Story resumed his activity in persecuting protestants, and it is said to have been largely due to his instigation that the inquisition was established at Antwerp in 1565. He received a pension from Philip II and gained the confidence of the Duke of Alva. When Alva, in order to check the spread of heresy in the Netherlands, determined to exclude all English books, he gave Story a commission to search ships coming into Flemish ports. This commission supplied the English government with a means of kidnapping him. In July 1570 one William Parker obtained the help of three young merchants, Roger Ramsden, Martin Bragge, and Simon Jukes, in carrying out this plan. They hired a vessel commanded by Cornelius de Eycke and sailed into Bergen-op-Zoom. The three merchants then went to Antwerp and brought down Story to overhaul the vessel; while he was examining the cargo Parker shut down the hatches and weighed anchor with Story on board (State Papers, Dom. lxxviii. 51). He was landed at Yarmouth on 11 Aug. and conveyed to the house of Thomas Watts, archdeacon of Middlesex. Thence he was transferred (on 4 Sept.) to Beauchamp's Tower, where an inscription he carved on the wall is still legible. He managed to write several letters to Guerau de Spes, the Spanish ambassador, who sent them on to Philip II, and Alva twice made formal demands for his release on the ground that he was a Spanish subject. Story was indicted in Westminster Hall on 26 May 1571 with Christopher and Francis Norton and Christopher Neville. He was accused of having incited Alva to invade England, and of having been privy to the northern rebellion of 1569. (He must, however, be distinguished from another John Story, ‘a servant of Richard Norton [q. v.]’, who was in Antwerp in 1572, and was afterwards apparently a captain in the Spanish service: see Cal. State Papers, Dom. Addenda, 1566–1579, pp. 349, 379; ib. For. 1575–7, No. 470). He refused to plead, maintaining that he was a Spanish subject. He was condemned for treason on the following day, and executed with horrible cruelty at Tyburn on 1 June. Story was at once numbered among the saints at Rome, and his life and death became one of the regular themes in the English College there (Anthony Munday, English Romaine Lyfe, 1590, p. 25). This sentiment was recognised by his formal beatification by papal decree dated 29 Dec. 1886 (printed in Tablet, 15 Jan. 1887, p. 81).
Wood attributes to Story four pieces: ‘An Oration against Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury’ (1556), ‘Discourse with John Philpot the Martyr,’ ‘Answer to Examinations during his Imprisonment,’ and ‘Speech at his Execution.’ These are printed in Foxe, but no separately published copies have been traced.
Story's wife, whom he married before 1548, was named Joan. She survived him and lived at Louvain, where she enjoyed a pension from Philip II (Cal. Simancas Papers, ii. 327). A daughter Ellen married one Weston, who in 1570 was imprisoned in the Fleet as a recusant. A son John became a priest at Douai (Douai Diaries, pp. 120, 123, 126). By his will, which he made in 1552 (printed in Strype, Annals, II. ii. 450–2), Story left his daughter Ellen 660 florins, which she was to forfeit on marriage, and 120 florins to any religious order she might enter. His executor was Antonio Bonvisi [q. v.], whom Story calls his ‘second father.’
