Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Green, Bartholomew
GREEN, BARTHOLOMEW or BARTLET (1530–1556), protestant martyr, was born in the parish of Basinghall, city of London. He was of a wealthy catholic family, and at the age of sixteen was sent by his parents, 'who favoured learning,' to Oxford, proceeding B.A. in 1547 (Wood, Fasti, ed. Bliss, i. 125; Boase, Reg. of Univ. of Oxford, i. 212). At the university he was a laborious student, and was converted by Peter Martyr's lectures to the protestant religion (Foxe, Acts and Monuments, ed. Townsend, vii. 731-46). On leaving Oxford Green entered the Inner Temple, and after a period of dissipation his earlier impressions revived, and he gave up his worldly amusements. His family were scandalised by his protestantism, and his grandfather, Dr. Bartlet, offered him bribes to abandon it. At Oxford Green had made friends with Christopher Goodman [q. v.], and on Easter Sunday 1554 took the sacrament with him in London before Goodman went beyond the seas (Maitland, Essays on the Reformation, 112). A letter from Green to Goodman was intercepted in 1555, in which he told his correspondent 'The queen is not dead.' It was read before the council, and Green was thrown into the Tower on a charge of treason, which broke down. He was then examined on religious questions before Bonner in November 1555. He was again sent back to prison (to Newgate), but was re-examined (15 Jan. 1555-6) before Bonner and Feckenham [q. v.] and condemned to be burnt. Foxe gives a detailed account of his martyrdom, and of the letters he wrote before his death. His character seems by all accounts to have been very amiable. A letter from one Careless to him when in prison addresses him as a 'meek and loving lamb of Christ.' He went cheerfully to the stake at Smithfield at 9 a.m. on 27 Jan. A priest, three tradesmen, and two women, were burnt with him.
[Foxe's Acts and Monuments, ed. Townsend, vii. 659-715, viii. 785; Strype's Memorials, vol. ii. pt. i. p. 190; Strype's Life of Cranmer, i. 370, 532; Brook's Lives of the Puritans, ii. 124.]