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Elizabeth Barton, ‘The Holy Maid of Kent’ was born in Aldington in 1506 1. She was employed as a servant to Thomas Cobb, steward of the Archbishop of Canterbury in the 1520s,2 however, at the age of nineteen her health began to deteriorate, so much so that it was feared that she had been stricken with a mortal disease.3 She was in ‘grievous paine, in-so-much as a man woulde have thought that shee had suffered the pangs of death intselfe, until the disease descended and dell down into the bodie againe.’4 It was at this period that she began to experience “curious” visions 5 and foresaw the death of Cobb’s child. She also began sharing the glories that she had seen of heaven and the agonies of hell with her neighbours and mistress6 and predicted that she would visit the chapel of Our Lady of Court-at-Street where she would be healed.7

Astonished with Barton’s knowledge of the unseen world and future, Thomas Cobb invited the parish priest Richard Masters to visit Barton and hear some of her revelations for himself, after which Masters communicated ‘of the prophetess Elizabeth Barton’ to Archbishop Warham.8 Upon hearing the news, Archbishop Warham sent an ecclesiastical commission led by Edward Bocking, a monk from the Benedictine house of Christ Church, Canterbury to examine Barton.9 She was questioned, and the commission found her orthodox on the points of faith.

The commission accompanied Barton to the chapel of Our Lady in the village of Court-at-Street in 1526 and it was here in front of neighbours, friends, masters and mistresses and the commission that she was miraculously healed.10 William Lambarde states in his Perambulation of Kent that upon visiting the chapel Barton was revived ‘from the very point of death,’ and that her healing ‘should be rong for a miracle.’11

Under the guidance of the commission, Barton entered the convent of St. Sepulchre in Canterbury, where she received the spiritual direction of Edward Bocking.12 Barton’s reputation for sanctity became wide spread leading to her reputation as a miracle worker and seer.13 She was venerated by the nuns at Syon Abbey, monks at the Charterhouses of Sheen and London, and the friars at Canterbury, Greenwich and Richmond, and had audiences with Henry VIII, Cardinal Wolsey, Sir Thomas More, Archbishop Warham and Bishop Fisher.14 However, her prophecies became increasingly contentious, and when she attacked the kings behaviour, it was felt that she had gone too far.15

Barton warned Thomas Wolsey and Sir Thomas More of the dreadful consequences that would befall Henry VIII should he divorce Catherine of Aragon.16 She was given an audience with the King in 1528 and told him that if he married Anne Boleyn the vengeance of God would plague him.17 Henry VIII ignored her but she continued to gain followers, and a year later she had another vision.18 This time, she warned the King that his voluptuousness and carnal appetite were leading him to disgrace God’s law and that if he divorced Catherine and married Anne, he would die a miserable death. Henry dismissed Barton and never invited her into his presence again.19 Barton lost her protectors when Thomas Wolsey died in 1530 and Archbishop Warham in 1532, leaving only Sir Thomas More who was a cautious supporter.20

In January 1533, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn were secretly married, however, Catherine and Sir Thomas More, unaware of the marriage, continued to use Barton’s prophecies against the King.21 When the King failed to die, he divorced Catherine and his marriage to Anne was made public. She was crowned Queen on 1 June 1533.22

Unwavering, Barton refused to deny papal authority, despite new legislation declaring Henry to be the Supreme Head of the English church.23 Parliament, fearing rebellion, accused her of treason and witchcraft and for spreading false prophecies. These prophecies were called by Parliament ‘lyes by them unlawfully and traiterously practysed devysed ymagyned and conspired, as well to the blasphemy of Almyghty God.’24 Parliament believed that Barton’s words should be punishable by death, however they did not wish to elevate her in the eyes of the public to the status of Catholic martyr, and instead attempted to discredit her reputation by calling her a traitor.25 Sermons and interrogations were preached across England portraying Barton as a a fraud. Barton was attacked by opponents who claimed she was in communication with the devil, and that she was having an affair with her confessor Edward Bocking. 26

Barton’s life illustrates the chaotic and complicated nature of the Henrician Reformation. Barton was seen as a religious deviant whose public disapproval of Henry transgressed gender boundaries and endangered his throne.27 It is believed that Barton denied her revelations and prophecies under interrogation, however this did not shake the trust of her supporters.28 Henry, keen to punish Barton and her followers, emphasised the fact that she had communicated with the devil and committed treason against him. After being found guilty, she was publicly hanged for treason and witchcraft on 20 April 1534.

The public hanging was intended as a symbolic act, and her body and those of her supporters were left on display to show that she was nothing but a broken and impure person.29 Her execution was on the same day that citizens were required to swear the Oath of Succession, revealing the government’s determination to silence those who publically criticized Henry VIII’s policies and reforms.30

This article was published: 30 April 2022.

Bibliography

Cheney, Denton A. ‘The Holy Maid of Kent,’ Transaction of the Royal Historical Society, 18 (1904): 107-29.
Collins, A. H. (1910). “The Holy Maid of Kent.” The Antiquary, 6, 6, (1910) 213-219. Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/historical-periodicals/holy-maid-kent/docview/6702584/se-2?accountid=9869.
Elton, G.R. “The Law of Treason in the Early Reformation.” The Historical Journal 11, no. 2 (1968): 212-22.
Farha, Sarah. “Her Intollerable Arrogancy: Comparing the Martyrdoms of Anne Askew and Elizabeth Barton Under Henry VIII.” Western Illinois Historical Review, Vol. III, Spring 2011, (2011): 1-21.
Jansen, Sharon L. Dangerous Talk and Strange Behavior: Women and Popular Resistance to the Reforms of Henry VIII. New York: St. Martin‟s Press, 1996.
Lambard, William. A Perambulation of Kent: Conteining the Description, Hystorie, and Customes of that Shire. (1576; reprint, London: Chatham 1826), 172, available from https://archive.org/details/perambulationofk00lambuoft (accessed March 14, 2022). Original spelling and punctuation are maintained in all primary source quotations used in this article.
Parkin, F. W. “Cobb’s Hall, Aldington, and the Holy Maid of Kent.” Archaeologia Cantiana. 86 (1971): 15-34.
Petrie, Anne. “The History Press, When Henry VIII Met the Holy Maid of Kent.” Accessed March 15, 2022. https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/articles/when-henry-viii-met-the-holy-maid-of-kent/.
Shagan, Ethan. Popular Politics and the English Reformation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
United Kingdom. Statutes of the Realm. Edited by A. Luders and others. 11 vols. London: HMSO 1810-28. http://heinonline.org/HOL/Welcome. Accessed March 14, 2022.
Watt, Diane. “Reconstructing the Word: The Political Prophecies of Elizabeth Barton (1506-1534).” Renaissance Quarterly 50, no. 1 (1997): 136–63. https://doi.org/10.2307/3039331.
Whatmore, L.E., ed. “The Sermon against the Holy Maid of Kent and her Adherents, delivered at Paul’s Cross, November the 23rd, 1533, and at Canterbury, December the 7th.” English Historical Review. 58 (1943): 463-75

References

  1. Parkin, F. W. “Cobb’s Hall, Aldington, and the Holy Maid of Kent.” Archaeologia Cantiana. 86 (1971): 16. ↩

  2. ibid., p, 15. ↩

  3. Collins, A. H. (1910). “The Holy Maid of Kent.” The Antiquary, 6, 6, (1910) 214. Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/historical-periodicals/holy-maid-kent/docview/6702584/se-2?accountid=9869. ↩

  4. Lambard, William. A Perambulation of Kent: Conteining the Description, Hystorie, and Customes of that Shire. (1576; reprint, London: Chatham 1826), 172, available from https://archive.org/details/perambulationofk00lambuoft (accessed March 14, 2022). Original spelling and punctuation are maintained in all primary source quotations used in this article. ↩

  5. Collins, A. H. ↩

  6. ibid. ↩

  7. Cheney, Denton A., p,109. ↩

  8. Collins, A. H., p,215. ↩

  9. Diane Watt, “Reconstructing the Word: The Political Prophecies of Elizabeth Barton (1506-1534).” Renaissance Quarterly 50, no. 1 (1997): 140, https://doi.org/10.2307/3039331. ↩

  10. ibid. ↩

  11. Lambard, William. ↩

  12. ibid. ↩

  13. ibid. ↩

  14. ibid. ↩

  15. “The History Press, When Henry VIII Met the Holy Maid of Kent,” Anne Petrie, accessed March 15, 2022, https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/articles/when-henry-viii-met-the-holy-maid-of-kent/ ↩

  16. Collins, A. H., p, 217. ↩

  17. “The History Press, When Henry VIII Met the Holy Maid of Kent.” ↩

  18. ibid. ↩

  19. ibid. ↩

  20. Diane Watt., p,140. ↩

  21. Sharon L. Jansen, Dangerous Talk and Strange Behavior: Women and Popular Resistance to the Reforms of Henry VIII, (New York: St. Martin‟s Press, 1996), 41-55. ↩

  22. Sharon L. Jansen. ↩

  23. ibid. ↩

  24. ibid. ↩

  25. United Kingdom, Statutes of the Realm. Edited by A. Luders and others. 11 vols. London: HMSO 1810-28. http://heinonline.org/HOL/Welcome, accessed March 14, 2022. ↩

  26. G.R. Elton, “The Law of Treason in the Early Reformation,” The Historical Journal 11, no. 2 (1968): 214. ↩

  27. Shagan, Popular Politics and the English Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 62. Peter Marshall discusses Barton in conjunction with the broader agenda to eliminate religious fraud (prophecy, miracles, and relics) that also discounted the monasteries during the period of the suppression. See “Forgeries and Miracles in the Reign of Henry VIII,” Past and Present 178 (2003): 39-73. ↩

  28. Sarah Farha, “Her Intollerable Arrogancy: Comparing the Martyrdoms of Anne Askew and Elizabeth Barton Under Henry VIII,” Western Illinois Historical Review, Vol. III, Spring 2011, (2011): 18 ↩

  29. L.E. Whatmore, ed. ‘The Sermon against the Holy Maid of Kent and her Adherents, delivered at Paul’s Cross, November the 23rd, 1533, and at Canterbury, December the 7th.” English Historical Review, 58 (1943): 474. ↩

  30. Diane Watt., p,159. ↩