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KEY Commentary Side Textual Bibliographic Scriptural
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waye. And other rule then thys ys there not: that the true
are done / to prouoke men to come and herken vnto gods worde
/ and the false to confirme doctrine that ys not gods worde.
Now yt ys not Gods worde if thou reade all the
scripture thorowe out / but contrary therto /
that we shuld put soch
trust and confidence in our blissed lady as we
doo / and cleane agenst
the testament that is in christes bloude.
Wherfore a man nede not to feare / to pronounce that the
deuell dyd yt to mocke vs with all.
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True miracles [1531]O
the testament . . .
bloude. Cf. Heb. 10.29, 13.20.
] Hebrews
] Hebrews
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Neuer the later let vs compare the mayde of Ipswich and the
maide of kent to gether. First they saye that
the maide of Ipswich was possessed with a deuell & the
maide of kent with the holy goste. And yet the tragedies
are so lyke the one to the other in all poyntes / that thou
cowdest not know the holy gost to be in the one and the
deuell in the other by any dyfference of workes. But that thou
mightest with as good reason saye that the
deuell was in both / or the holy gost in both / or the
deuell in the mayde of kent and the holy gost in the mayde
of Ipswich. For they were both in like traunses
/ both raueshed from them selues / both
tormented a lyke / both disfigured / lyke terreble ougly
and grysely in sight / and theyr mouthes drawen a syde /
euen vnto the very eares of them / both enspyred / both
preach / both tell of wonders / wilbe both caryed
vnto our lady / and are both certified by
reuelacyon that our lady in those places and before those
images shuld deliuer them.
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maide of kent.
Prudently, More never mentions the Maid of Kent in Dialogue or Confutation. Here and in
Obedience (T4), Tyndale refers to
this politically dangerous case. After a cure in 1526 attributed to
Mary, Elizabeth
Barton became a Benedictine nun in Canterbury. Her pious
visions turned political when she declared that Henry VIII
would die seven months after he married Anne Boleyn. Fisher believed her
revelations, but More counselled her not to meddle in public
affairs. See Ep. 192, To Elizabeth Barton,
Chelsea, Tuesday <1533?> (More, Correspondence 464–66). For his connection with
Barton, Fisher was fined 300 pounds, one year's revenue from his
diocese, but More's caution won him exemption from penalty.
See Alan Neame, The Holy Maid of Kent: The Life of
Elizabeth Barton, 1506–1534 (London:
Hodder and Stoughton, 1971). Barton was executed, together with five
priests,
on 20 April 1534, the day that the guildsmen
of London were called upon to take the oath of
succession. Cf. Richard Rex, "The Execution of
the Holy Maid of Kent," Historical Research 64
(1991) 216–20, esp. 219. Three days earlier, Fisher and More had gone to
the Tower because they refused to take the oath which implicitly
rejected papal authority.
In her trances, locutions and fasts the Maid of Kent showed some of the
characteristics of hysteria. Cf. Nicholas P.
Sanos, "Witchcraft in Histories of Psychiatry," Psychological Bulletin 85 (1978) 417–39; rpt. in
Articles on Witchcraft, Magic and Demonology 3.212. In her defense, see
Diane Watt, "Reconstructing the Word: the Political
Prophecies of Elizabeth Barton (1506–1534),"
Renaissance Quarterly 50.1 (Spring 1997)
136–63.
The mayde of kent [1531]
The mayde of Ipswich & the maide of Kent were both false
dissembling harlotes.[1573]
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Now as for the mayde of Ipswych was possessed off the deuell
by theyr awne con
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