Marginalia1558. Nouemb.At his comming vnto his father,MarginaliaThe childe all bloudy brought to hys father in prison. the child fell downe vpon his knees, and asked him blessing. The poore man then beholdyng his child, and seyng him so cruell arrayed, cried out for sorrow, and sayd: Alas Wil, who hath done this to thee? The boy aunswered, that as he was seekyng how to come to see his father, a Priest with Baalams marke tooke hym into þ^e Bishops house, and there was he so handled. MarginaliaCluny caryeth the boy agane to the Byshops house.Cluny therewithall violently plucked the child away out of hys fathers hādes, and caryed him backe agayne into the Byshops house, where they kept hym about three dayes after. And at the three dayes end, Boner (mindyng to make the matter whole, and somewhat to appease the poore man, for this their horrible fact) determined to release him, and therfore caused hym early in a mornyng to be brought out of Lollardes Tower, into his bedchamber, where he found the Byshop bastyng of him selfe agaynst a great fire: and at his first entrying into the chamber, MarginaliaThe wordes betwene Boner & Ioh. Fetry.Fetty sayd, God be here and peace. God be here and peace (quoth Boner?) that is neither God speede, nor good morrow. If ye kicke agaynst this peace (sayd Fetty) then this is not the place that I seeke for. A Chaplaine of the Byshops standyng by, turned the poore mā about, and thinkyng to deface hym, sayd in mockyng wyse: what haue we here? a Player? Whilest this Fetty was standing in the Bishops chamber, he espyed hāgyng about the Byshops bedde a great payre of blacke beades, MarginaliaBoners Beades.wherupon he sayd: my Lord, I thinke the hāgman is not farre of: for the halter (poyntyng to the beades) is here already. At which wordes the Byshop was in a marueilous rage.

Then immediatly after he espyed also, standyng in the sayd Byshops chamber in the window, a litle CrucifixMarginaliaBoners Crucifix. (before which belyke Boner vsed to kneele in the time of his hypocriticall prayers). Then he asked the Bishop what it was: and he aūswered that it was Christ. Was he handled so cruelly as he is here pictured, quoth Fetty?

Yea that he was, sayd the Byshop.

And euen so cruelly will you handle such as come before you. MarginaliaB. Boner cōpared to Cayphas.For you are vnto Gods people, as Cayphas was vnto Christ.

The Byshop beyng in a great fury sayd: thou art a vyle hereticke, & I will burne thee, or els I will spende all that I haue vnto my gowne.

Nay my Lord, sayd Fetty, ye were better to geue it to some poore body, that he may pray for you. But yet Boner bethinkyng in hym selfe of the daunger which the child was in by their whippyng, and what perill might insue thereupon, thought better to discharge him: which thyng was accomplished.

MarginaliaB. Boner for feare of the law in murdering a child, deliuered the father out of prison.Wherupon, after this & such talke, the Bishop at last discharged hym, willyng hym to go home and cary hys child with him: which he so did, and that with a heauy hart, to see hys poore boy in such extreme payne and grief. But within xiiij. dayes after the child dyed, whether through this cruell scourgyng, or any other infirmitie,MarginaliaThe Martyrdome of a childe scourged to death in Boners house. I know not, and therfore I referre the truth therof vnto the Lord, who knoweth all secretes, and also to the discrete iudgement of the wise Reader. But how so euer it was, the Lord yet vsed this their cruell and detestable fact, as a meanes of his prouidence for the deliuery of this good poore man and faythfull Christian: his name be euer praysed therfore, Amen.

The cruell handlyng and burnyng of Nicolas Burton Englishman and Marchaunt, in Spayne.  

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Englishmen Persecuted in Spain

The accounts of Burton, the unnamed Englishman burned on 22 December 1560, Baker, Burgate, Burges and Hoker first appeared in the 1563 edition. In the 1570 edition an account of John Fronton's ordeals was added. This was taken from a translation of Reginaldus Gonsalvius Montanus's account of the Inquisition which was printed by John Day in 1568. ['Reginaldus Gonsalvius Montanus' was a pseudonym. B. A. Vermaseren has persuasively argued that 'Gonsalvius' was really Antonio del Corro, a Spanish theologian who converted to Calvinism and lived in exile in Antwerp and later taught theology at Oxford ('Who was Reginaldus Gonsalvius Montanus?' Bibliotheque d'Hiumanisme et Renaissance 47 [1985], pp. 47-77)].

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MarginaliaThe story of Nicholas Burton Martyr, in Spaine.FOrasmuch as in our former booke of Actes and Monumentes mention was made of the Martyrdome of Nicholas Burton, I thought here also not to omitte the same, the story being such as is not vnworthy to bee

knowen, aswell for þ^e profitable example of his singular constancie, as also for the notyng of the extreme dealyng and cruell rauenyng of those Catholicke Inquisitours of Spayne, who vnder the pretensed visour of Religion, do nothyng but seeke their owne priuate gayne and commoditie, with crafty defraudyng and spoilyng of other mens goodes, as by the notyng of this story may appeare.

The fift day of the moneth of Nouember, about the yeare of our Lord God. 1560. this Nicholas Burton MarginaliaNicholas Burton Londoner.Citizen sometyme of London and Marchaunt, dwelling in the Parish of litle S. Bartlemew, peacably and quietly followyng hys traffike in the trade of Marchaundise, and beyng in the Citie of Cadix in the partes of Andolazia in Spayne, there came into hys lodgyng a Iudas (or as they terme them) a Familiar of the fathers of the Inquisition. Who in askyng for the sayd Nicholas Burton, fayned that he had a letter to deliuer to his owne handes: by which meanes hee spake with hym immediatly. And hauyng no letter to deliuer to him, then the sayd Promoter or Familiar, at the mocion of the Deuill hys master, whose messenger he was, inuented an other lye, and sayd that he would take ladyng for London in such shippes as the sayd Nicholas Burton had frayted to lade, if he would let any: which was partly to know where he laded hys goodes, that they might attach them, and chiefly to detract the tyme vntill the Alguisiel, or Sergeant of the sayd Inquisition, might come and apprehend the body of the sayd Nicolas Burton: which they dyd incontinently. Who then well perceauyng that they were not able to burden nor charge him that he had written, spoken, or done any thyng there in that countrey agaynst the Ecclesiasticall or Temporall lawes of the same Realme, boldly asked them what they had to lay to hys charge that they did so Arrest hym, and bad them to declare the cause and hee would aunswere them. Notwithstandyng, they aunswered nothyng, but commaunded hym with cruell and threatnyng wordes to hold hys peace, and not to speake one woorde to them. MarginaliaNich. Burton layd in prison, they hauing no cause to charge hym with.And so they caryed hym to the cruell and filthy common prison of þ^e same towne of Cadix, where he remained in irons 14. daies amōgest theeues. All which time he so instructed the poore prisoners in þ^e word of God, according to þ^e good talent which God had geuē hym in that behalfe and also in the Spanysh toung to vtter the same, that in short space he had well reclaimed sundry of these superstitious and ignorant Spanyardes to embrace the worde of God, and to reiect their Popish traditions. Which beyng knowen vnto þ^e Officers of the Inquisition, MarginaliaNich. Burton caryed to Siuill.they conueyed hym laden with yrons from thence to a Citie called Siuill, into a more cruell and straighter prison called Tryana,  

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The Trajana is a district of Seville, not a prison.

MarginaliaNich. Burton brought to iudgement after a disguised maner.Afterward the xx. day of December, in the foresayd yeare, they brought the sayd Nicholas Burton with a great number of other prisoners, for professing the true Christian Religion, into the Citie of Siuill, to a place where the sayd Inquisition sat in iudgement, which they call the Awto, with a Canuas coate, wheron in diuers partes was paynted the figure of an houge Deuill, tormentyng a soule in a flame of fire, and on hys head a coppyng tanke of the same woorke. His tounge was forced out of hys mouth with a clouen sticke fastened vpon it, that he should not vtter hys conscience and fayth to the people, & so he was set with an other English man of Southampton,MarginaliaNich. Burton with an other English man of Southampton condemned. and diuers others condemned men for Religion, as well French men, as Spanyardes, vpon a Scaffolde ouer agaynst the sayd Inquisition, where their sentences and iudge-