MarginaliaAn. 1555. March.not, I shall require my bloud at your handes.
Then sayd William: Sonne of God, shyne vpō me, MarginaliaAn externall shew of Christes fauour vpon W. Hunter.and immediatly the sunne in the element shone out of a darke cloud, so full in his face, that he was cōstrained to looke an other way: whereat the people mused, because it was so darke a litle tyme afore.
This could have happened, but the sun shining on a martyr out of a cloudy sky occurs commonly in hagiography; e.g., the description of the clouds parting and the sun shining on John Fisher as he mounted the streps to the scaffold (Fr. van Ortroy, 'Vie du bienheureux martyr Jean Fisher,' Analecta Bollandiana 12 [1893], p. 194. This life of Fisher was written in an attempt to secure the canonization of the martyred cardinal).
[Back to Top]Then was there a Gentleman which sayd, I pray God haue mercy vppon his soule. The people sayd: Amen, Amen. Immediatly fire was made. Then William cast his Psalter right into his brothers hād, who sayd: MarginaliaHunter comforted by hys brother Robert.William thinke on the holy Passiō of Christ, & be not afrayd of death. And William aunswered: I am not afrayd. Then lift he vp his hands to heauen & said, Lord, Lord, Lord, receiue my spirite, & castyng downe his head agayn into the smothering smoke, he yelded vp hys lyfe for the truth, sealyng it with hys bloud, to the prayse of God.
[Back to Top]Now, by and by after, M. Browne cōmaunded one olde Hunt to take his brother Robert Hunter, MarginaliaRob. Hunter sette in the stockes.and lay him in the Stockes till hee returned from the burning of Higbed at Hornden on the hill, the same day. Which thing olde Hunt dyd. Then M. Browne (MarginaliaRob. Hunter had before M. Browne.when Robert Hunter came before him) asked if hee would do as his brother had done. But Robert Hunter aunswred: if I do as my brother hath done, I shall haue as he hath had. Mary (quoth M. Browne) thou mayest bee sure of it. Then M. Browne sayd, I maruayle, that thy brother stode so to his tackling: and moreouer, asked Robert if Williams Maister of London
This was Thomas Taylor, the silk weaver to whom William Hunter had been apprenticed. Obviously Brown suspected, rightly or wrongly, that Taylor had fostered William Hunter's evangelical convictions and he was trying to force Robert Hunter to implicate Taylor.
commaunded the Constable and Robert Hunter to go their wayes home, and so had no further talke with them.
The Rerum contains an account of Causton and Higbed being taken toLondon and prints the confession of faith Causton and Higbed made in Consistory Court (Rerum, pp. 426 and 428-31). This material was reprinted in the 1563 edition. Foxe also added accounts of their sessions in the Consistory Court of St Pauls, the articles presented against them with their answers and their condemnation, all drawn from Bishop Bonner's official records. A description of their condemnation may have been taken from the description of a spectator. In the second edition Foxe added nothing, but he arranged the material in chronological order. He also eliminated material from this narrative, and more unusually rewrote it. The account of Causton and Higbed remained unchanged in the third and the fourth editions.
[Back to Top]Starting with a gloss recording the date of their martyrdoms (as appears to be Foxe's standard practice at the beginning of the lives of his martyrs), the glosses in this section serve the usual purpose of marking the events leading up to execution: interrogation, imprisonment, preparation for the end. The gloss 'Also sir Edmund Boner priest before the death of Cromwell, seemed to be of the opinion and was sworne twise agaynst the Pope' makes the point that Bonner's conduct under an earlier monarch cannot be reconciled with his actions under Mary, sustaining the all-important charge of hypocrisy. Foxe parodies the form of the article in calling Bonner 'sir Edmund Boner priest'. The glosses 'M. Causton and M. Higbed constant to death in their confession' and 'The constāt Martirdome of M. Thomas Caustō, and Maister Higbed Martyrs' emphasise the constancy of the martyrs, a virtue as important to the portrayal of the martyrs as hypocrisy was to that of their persecutors. The glosses relating to the confession of faith illustrate a common difference between 1563 and later editions. 1563 uses the most perfunctory form of annotation (numbers) while the later editions include the numbers in the text and have full glosses. The restrained, factual tone of the gloss 'M. Causton appealeth to the Cardinall' probably reflects Foxe feeling torn between the desire to expose procedural injustice with the tacit endorsement of Pole's, and therefore the pope's, authority that such an appeal implied. Several of the glosses (especially at the start of the 'confession' section) are badly placed, no more commonly in one edition than another.
[Back to Top]This M. Higbed and M. Causton, two worshipful Gentlemē in the County of Essex,
Praise of Essex as the county most fruitful in producing martyrs follows in the 1563 edition. This was dropped in subsequent editions, probably because Foxe became more aware of the contributions of the counties of Kent and Sussex. (Kent has the dubious distinction of being the countywith the most martyrs executed).
[Back to Top]In effect, Foxe is saying that he does not know how Causton and Higbed came to be arrested. Despite their relative social prominence, the backgrounds of Causton and Higbed remain surprisingly obscure.
See 2 Maccabees 7: 20-29. Brad Gregory has described the importance of the Maccabees as models for early modern martyrs (Gregory, pp. 67, 109, 157, 221 and 280).
Boner the foresayd bishop, perceiuing these. ij. Gentlēmen to be of worshipfull estate, and of great estimation in that countrey, lest any tumult should thereby aryse, came thither him selfe,MarginaliaB. Boner commeth himselfe to Colchester. accompanied with M. Fecknam and certaine other, thinking to reclaime them to hys faction and fashion:
A description of Feckenham trying to convert Higbed and Causton was printed in the 1563 edition and subsequently dropped. It does appear that Foxe was trying to shorten this narrative in the 1570 edition; perhaps this concern was related to a shortage of paper for this edition (see Evenden and Freeman, pp.37-39).
[Back to Top]In fine, when nothing could preuayle to make them assent to theyr doings, at lēgth they came to this point, that they required certaine respite to consult with them selues what were best to do. Which time of deliberation being expired, and they remayning styll constant and vnmoueable in their professed doctrine, and setting out also their confession in writing, the bishop seing no good to be done in tarying any longer there, MarginaliaM. Higbed & M. Causton caryed to London.departed thēce & caryed them both with hym to London,
A description of Bonner riding in triumph through London, which was here in 1563, was subsequently dropped. It has been hypothesized that Foxe toned down his rhetoric in the the 1570 edition (see Alaister Fox) and this would appear to supply confirmation of this theory.
The accounts of the sessions in Consistory Court, together with the articles charged againt Causton and Higbed, and their answers, are taken from Bishop Bonner's official records, probably a court book which has now been lost.