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Elizabeth Barton

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Elizabeth Barton (1506 – 20 April 1534), known as "The Nun of Kent", "The Holy Maid of London", "The Holy Maid of Kent" and later "The Mad Maid of Kent", was an English Catholic nun. She was executed as a result of her prophecies against the marriage of King Henry VIII of England to Anne Boleyn.[1]

Early life

Little is known about Barton's early life. She was born in 1506 in the parish of Aldington, about 12 miles from Canterbury,[2] and appears to have come from a poor background. She was working as a servant in 1525 when she said her visions began. This followed her suffering for some months from "an impostume in her stomach, which divers times redounded upwards to her throat and was like to stop her breath", during which time she could not eat or drink, as well as seizures and periods of paralysis.[3]

Visions

On Easter of 1525,[4] at the age of 19, while working as a domestic servant in the household of Thomas Cobb, a farmer of Aldington, who worked for Archbishop William Warham, Barton claimed to have had very vivid visions and to have received divine revelations that predicted events. This included the death of a child living in her household or, more frequently, pleas for people to remain in the Catholic Church. Her revelations followed a similar pattern of Catholic orthodoxy seen in previous 'holy maids' in the later medieval period.[3] She urged people to pray to the Virgin Mary and to undertake pilgrimages. Thousands believed in her prophecies and both Archbishop William Warham and Bishop John Fisher attested to her pious life.[5]

When some events that Barton foretold apparently occurred, her reputation spread. Barton's revelations became publicly known and matters were brought up by Archbishop William Warham.[6] The parish priest, Richard Masters, duly referred the matter to Warham, who appointed a commission to ensure that none of her prophecies was at variance with Catholic teaching. This commission was led by the Benedictine monk, Edward Bocking, Barton's spiritual advisor.[4] When the commission decided favourably, Warham arranged for Barton to be received in the Benedictine St Sepulchre's Priory, Canterbury, under Bocking's spiritual direction.[2]

Barton's life became very public. Nothing unorthodox was found in her case; her alleged public healing from the Virgin Mary at Court-at-Street (a hamlet near Lympne, Kent) increased attention and brought fame to her and to the Marian Shrine.

In 1527, Robert Redman published A marueilous woorke of late done at Court of Streete in Kent which discussed all of Barton's "miracles, revelations, and prophecies" and the controversies leading up to the arrests and executions.[6]

In 1528, Barton held a private meeting with Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, the second most powerful man in England after Henry VIII, and she soon thereafter met twice with Henry himself. Henry accepted Barton because her prophecies supported the existing order. She also consulted with Richard Reynolds, a Bridgettine monk of Syon Abbey. He arranged a meeting between Barton and Thomas More, who was impressed by her fervour.[7] Her prophecies warned against heresy and condemned rebellion at a time when Henry was attempting to stamp out Lutheranism and was afraid of possible uprising or even assassination by his enemies.

Conflict with Henry VIII

By 1534, Barton's prophecies were less in tune with the interests of Henry VIII, becoming more about political affairs of both state and religion.[3] When the King began the process of obtaining an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon and seizing control of the Church in England from Rome, Barton opposed him. Barton strongly opposed the English Reformation and, in around 1532, began prophesying that if Henry remarried, he would die within a few months. She said that she had even seen the place in Hell to which he would go. Thomas More thought many prophesies were fictitiously attributed to her,[2] and King Henry actually lived for a further 15 years. Remarkably, probably because of her popularity, Barton went unpunished for nearly a year. More, Reynolds & Fisher all warned her against ‘political’ statements and distanced themselves from her. The King's agents spread false rumours about mental illness and sexual relationships with priests.[3]

With her reputation undermined, Barton was arrested by the Crown in 1533 and forced to confess that she had fabricated her revelations.[1] What is known regarding her confession comes from Thomas Cromwell, his agents and other sources affiliated with the Crown. MacCulloch, in his life of Thomas Cromwell, describes the process in some detail and it seems clear that Barton's arrest was used as part of a larger scheme to bring pressure on those who opposed the King's divorce & re-marriage. Cromwell very efficiently, and for the first time in England, arrested a printer who had produced a pamphlet supporting Barton and collected 700 copies of the print, none of which survive.

In mid-November 1533 an Extraordinary Great Council of Notables was held at Westminster over three days to discuss the ongoing dispute with the Pope and Elizabeth Barton. Barton, who had confessed, was put on show during the proceedings. The Lord Chancellor, Thomas Audley, in his speech on Barton, named and implicated many prominent people "in her seditious conversations". MacCulloch points out he only named those were already dead, whilst making it clear that other names were known. This implied threat was used to great effect by Cromwell in his efforts to bring about the legislation on the Kings divorce, the split with Rome and the attack on the monasteries.

Treason of Elizabeth Barton (Pretended Revelations) Act 1533
Act of Parliament
coat of arms
Parliament of England
Long title An Act concerning the Attainder of Elizabeth Barton and others
Citation 25 Hen. 8. c. 12
Territorial extent England and Wales
Dates
Royal assent 30 March 1534
Commencement 15 January 1534[8]
Repealed 30 July 1948
Other legislation
Repealed by Statute Law Revision Act 1948
Status: Repealed
Text of statute as originally enacted

Friar John Laurence of the Observant Friars of Greenwich gave evidence against Barton and against fellow Observants, Friars Hugh Rich and Richard Risby. Laurence then requested to be named to one of the posts left vacant by their imprisonment.[9] She was condemned by a bill of attainder, the Treason of Elizabeth Barton (Pretended Revelations) Act 1533 (25 Hen. 8. c. 12), an act of the Parliament of England authorising punishment without trial. This was the first, but by no means the last, use of attainder by Henry and his government.

Barton was attainted for treason by act of Parliament, on the basis that she had maliciously opposed Henry VIII's divorce from Catherine of Aragon, and had prophesied that the king would lose his kingdom. Barton had also asserted that God had revealed to her that he no longer recognised Henry VIII's monarchy. The act of attainder argued that Barton was at the centre of a conspiracy against the King. Barton was viewed as a false prophet who was encouraged to profess fake revelations to persuade others to go against the monarchy.[10]

MacCulloch shows that when it came to frame charges against her there was a difficulty. Treason required hard evidence, preferably in writing, and that was lacking. A new offence, misprision of treason, had recently been introduced which was wider in scope than the Treason Act but had lesser penalties. Not only would that have been retrospective but it would have been possible to argue that a very much wider range of people should be charged as well as they had listened and talked to Barton over some time. Attainder was much simpler. Treason, for a woman, also meant a sentence of being burnt at the stake, however the Barton attainder only specified that the named prisoners should be "put to death". There is some evidence that Cromwell, in this case as in others, preferred a quicker death for the prisoners.

On 20 April 1534 Elizabeth Barton was hanged at Tyburn for treason.[7] She was 28 years old. Five of her chief supporters were executed alongside her:

Barton was buried at Greyfriars Church in Newgate, but her head was put on a spike on London Bridge. She is the only woman in English history to have this final indignity imposed upon her.

Legacy

Churches such as the Anglican Catholic Church of St Augustine of Canterbury[13] continue to venerate Barton.

Barton's case is dealt with in the 2009 historical novel Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, and in its television adaptation, where she is played by Aimee-Ffion Edwards. Barton and her prophecies are also mentioned in Philippa Gregory’s 2014 novel The King's Curse; the sixth and final book in The Cousins' War series.

Barton is personally interrogated by Thomas Cromwell, Thomas Cranmer and Nicòla Frescobaldi in Shaking the Throne by author Caroline Angus.

In the play A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt, Barton is referenced during the interrogation of Thomas More as having been executed (she was executed about 15 months before More).[1][14]

Barton is mentioned as the "Holy Maid" in the 1905 novel The King's Achievement by Robert Hugh Benson.[15]

Barton is the subject of The Lost Book of Elizabeth Barton, a novel about a modern-day historian recovering a copy of Barton's prophecies and subsequently becoming entangled in a murder investigation in an English manor near St Sepulchre's Priory.[16]

See also

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

Elizabeth Barton — Born probably in 1506; executed at Tyburn, 20 April, 1534; called the "Nun of Kent." The career of this visionary, whose prophecies led to her execution under Henry VIII, has been the source of a historical controversy which resolves itself into the question: Was she gifted with supernatural knowledge or was she an impostor?

In 1525, when nineteen years of age, being then employed as a domestic servant at Aldington, Kent, she had an illness during which she fell into frequent trances and told "wondrously things done in other places whilst she was neither herself present nor yet heard no report thereof." From the first her utterances assumed a religious character and were "of marvellous holiness in rebuke of sin and vice."

Her parish priest, Richard Masters, convinced of her sincerity, reported the matter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who sent a commission of three Canterbury Benedictines, Bocking, Hadleigh, and Barnes, two Franciscans, Hugh Rich and Richard Risby, a diocesan official, and the parish priest to examine her again. Shortly after the commission pronounced in her favour, her prediction that the Blessed Virgin would cure her at a certain chapel was fulfilled, when in presence of a large crowd she was restored to health. She then became a Benedictine nun, living near Canterbury, with a great reputation for holiness. Her fame gradually spread until she came into wide public notice.

She protested "in the name and by the authority of God" against the king's projected divorce. To further her opposition, besides writing to the pope, she had interviews with Fisher, Wolsey, and the king himself. Owing to her reputation for sanctity, she proved one of the most formidable opponents of the royal divorce, so that in 1533 Cromwell took steps against her and, after examination by Cranmer, she was in November, with Dr. Bocking, her confessor, and others, committed to the Tower. Subsequently, all the prisoners were made to do public penance at St. Paul's and at Canterbury and to publish confessions of deception and fraud.

In January, 1534, a bill of attainder was framed against her and thirteen of her sympathizers, among whom were Fisher and More. Except the latter, whose name was withdrawn, all were condemned under this bill; seven, including Bocking, Masters, Rich, Risby, and Elizabeth herself, being sentenced to death, while Fisher and five others were condemned to imprisonment and forfeiture of goods. Elizabeth and her companions were executed at Tyburn on 20 April, 1534, when she is said to have repeated her confession.

Protestant authors allege that these confessions alone are conclusive of her imposture, but Catholic writers, though they have felt free to hold divergent opinions about the nun, have pointed out the suggestive fact that all that is known as to these confessions emanates from Cromwell or his agents; that all available documents are on his side; that the confession issued as hers is on the face of it not her own composition; that she and her companions were never brought to trial, but were condemned and executed unheard; that there is contemporary evidence that the alleged confession was even then believed to be a forgery. For these reasons, the matter cannot be considered as settled, and unfortunately, the difficulty of arriving at any satisfactory and final decision now seems insuperable.

Act of Attainder, 25 Henry VIII, cap. xii; Wright, Suppression of the Monasteries; Gardner, Letters and Papers of Henry VIIIfor 1533-4; Lee in Dict. Nat. Biog., III, 343; Gasquet, Henry VIII and the Eng. Monasteries (1889), I, iii; Bridgett, Life of Fisher (1890), xi; Idem, Life of More (1892), xvii.

Edwin Burton

References

  1. Back to citation occurrence 1.0 Back to citation occurrence 1.1 Back to citation occurrence 1.2 Burton, Edwin Hubert (1907). "Elizabeth Barton". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 2. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  2. Back to citation occurrence 2.0 Back to citation occurrence 2.1 Back to citation occurrence 2.2 Hamilton, Adam (1905). The Angel of Syon, The Life and Martyrdom of Blessed Richard Reynolds. London: Sands & Co. p. 26.
  3. Back to citation occurrence 3.0 Back to citation occurrence 3.1 Back to citation occurrence 3.2 Back to citation occurrence 3.3 "Barton, Elizabeth [called the Holy Maid of Kent, the Nun of Kent] (c. 1506–1534), Benedictine nun and visionary". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/1598. Retrieved 2 December 2023. (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
  4. Back to citation occurrence 4.0 Back to citation occurrence 4.1 Warren, Nancy Bradley (2005). Women of God and Arms. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 2.
  5. Back to citation A Popular History of the Reformation, p. 177, Philip Hughes, 1957
  6. Back to citation occurrence 6.0 Back to citation occurrence 6.1 Warren, Nancy Bradley (2005). Women of God and Arms. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 3.
  7. Back to citation occurrence 7.0 Back to citation occurrence 7.1 Watt, Diane (1997). "Reconstructing the Word: the Political Prophecies of Elizabeth Barton (1506–1534)". Renaissance Quarterly. 50 (1): 136–163. doi:10.2307/3039331. ISSN 0034-4338. JSTOR 3039331. S2CID 155400178.
  8. Back to citation Start of session.
  9. Back to citation Camm, Bede (1914). "Blessed John Forest". Lives of the English Martyrs Declared Blessed by Pope Leo XIII, Vol. I. London: Longmans, Green and Co. p. 280 – via archive.org.
  10. Back to citation Watt, Diane (1997). "Reconstructing the Word: the Political Prophecies of Elizabeth Barton (1506-1534)". Renaissance Quarterly. 50 (1): 136–163. doi:10.2307/3039331. JSTOR 3039331. S2CID 155400178.
  11. Back to citation Gasquet, Cardinal Francis Aidan (1906). Henry VIII and the English Monasteries. G. Bell. p. 36 – via Google Books.
  12. Back to citation occurrence 12.0 Back to citation occurrence 12.1 Back to citation occurrence 12.2 "Richard Risby". Catholic Encyclopedia. 1 February 1912. Retrieved 5 November 2016 – via newadvent.org.
  13. Back to citation Church of St Augustine of Canterbury, Anglican Catholic, 2009–2010, retrieved 22 June 2010
  14. Back to citation "Thomas More". The Catholic Encyclopedia – via newadvent.org.
  15. Back to citation Benson, Robert Hugh (1 July 1905). "The King's achievement [microform]". Toronto: Copp, Clark. Retrieved 1 July 2026 – via Internet Archive.
  16. Back to citation "The Lost Book of Elizabeth Barton". Retrieved 1 July 2026.

Bibliography

  • McKee, John (1925), Dame Elizabeth Barton OSB, the Holy Maid of Kent, London: Burns, Oates and Washbourne.
  • Neame, Alan (1971), The Holy Maid of Kent: The Life of Elizabeth Barton: 1506–1534, London: Hodder and Stoughton, ISBN 978-0-340-02574-1.
  • Shagan, Ethan H (2003), "Chapter 2: The Anatomy of opposition in early Reformation England; the case of Elizabeth Barton, the holy maid of Kent", Popular Politics in the English Reformation, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 61–88.
  • Warren, Nancy Bradley (2005), Women of God and Arms., Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
  • Watt, Diane (1997), Secretaries of God, Cambridge, UK: DS Brewer.
  • MacCulloch, Diarmaid (2018), Thomas Cromwell - a Life, London, UK: Allen Lane
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