58
THE LIFE OF
could by no manner of benefit win him to his side, then lo went he about by terror and threats to drive him thereunto. The beginning of which trouble grew by occasion of a certain nun dwelling in [1]Canterbury, for her [2]virtue and holiness of life among the people not a little esteemed: unto whom, for that cause, many religious persons, doctors of divinity, and divers others of good worship of the laity used to resort. Who affirming that she had revelations from God, to give the king warning of his wicked life, and
- ↑ In the Nunnery of St. Sepulchre's, a little to the southward of St. Austin's Abbey. Her name was Elizabeth Barton, better known by the designation of the 'holy maid of Kent.' She was born at Aldington, and being subject to fits, the contortions of her body, and her incoherent ravings, during the paroxysms of her disorder, were considered by her ignorant neighbours as proofs of divine inspiration; and at length she herself gave way to the illusion. She was advised to enter a convent, and here her prophetic ecstasies increased. At last she became the victim of her own credulity, and the knavish designs of some unprincipled ecclesiastics, for venturing to extend her predictions to the king and his affairs, she suffered at Tyburn in April 1534.
- ↑ ——— of a truth I had a great good opinion of her, and had her in great estimation, as you shall perceive by the letter I wrote unto her. ——— in searching to find out the truth, as your self hath done, very prudently in this matter, you have done, in my mind, to your great laud and praise a very meritorious deed in bringing forth to light such detestable hypocrisy, whereby every other wretch may take warning, and be feared to set forth their own devilish dissembled falsehood, under the manner and colour of the wonderful work of God.—Sir Thomas More's Letter to Mr. Secretary Cromwell.
