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Equivocation and Recantation During the English Reformation: The ‘Subtle Shadows’ of Dr Edward Crome

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2009

Susan Wabuda
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Extract

Writing from prison during the Marian persecution, Nicholas Ridley praised the elderly Dr Edward Crome to his friend John Hooper, who was incarcerated with Crome. Ridley had heard of Crome's ‘most godly and fatherly constancy in confessing the truth of the gospel’, and declared, ‘For the integrity and uprightness, the gravity and innocency of that man, all England, I think, hath known long ago.’ Ridley also wrote to John Bradford in 1555 that Crome was a ‘fatherly example of patience and constancy, and all manner of true godliness’.

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Articles
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The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , April 1993 , pp. 224 - 242
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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References

1 Ridley to Hooper: Miles Coverdale (comp.), Certain most godly, fruitful, and comfortable letters of such true Saintes and holy Martyrs of God, London 1564, 44–9 (the letter was originally written in Latin, and the English translation was provided by Coverdale); AM 1570,1677; AM vi. 642–3; Ridley to Bradford: Coverdale, Certain most godly letters, 60–2; AM 1570, 1898; AM vii. 425.

2 He took his BA at Cambridge in 1505, his MA in 1508, his BD in 1518, and DD in 1526. He was a university preacher in 1516. His will, witnessed by Robert Wisdom and William Tolwyn, was made on 3 Sept. 1561, and proved on 2 Jul. 1562: PRO, PROB n/45, fos 138r–gv (hereinafter cited as Crome's will). For Crome's background, see Brodie, R. H., ‘The case of Dr Crome’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society n.s. 21 (1905), 295–304CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Martin's, Charles Trice article in the Dictionary of National Biography, v. 138–40Google Scholar; and that of John, Fines in A Biographical register of early English Protestants and others opposed to the Roman Catholic Church 1525–1558, A–C, temp, edn, Abingdon 1981; Athenae Cantabrigienses, ed. Charles Henry Cooper and Thompson Cooper, Cambridge 1858, i. 215–16Google Scholar; John, Venn and Venn, J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses, Cambridge 1922, i. 421Google Scholar; John, Venn, Biographical History of Gonville and Caius College 1349–1897, Cambridge 1897, i. 17–18.Google Scholar

3 And yet Becon was forced to recant those very words at Paul's Cross in 1543 with the disclaimer that he did not mean that these punishments were used against true confessions of faith: Thomas, Becon, A potation or drinkyngefor this holy time of Lent… [pseud. Theodore Basilic, London 1542], STC 1750, fo. 29V, repr. in The Early Works of Thomas Becon,' ed. John Ayre (PS 1843), 99.Google Scholar

4 AM v. 696. For Bale on martyrdom, see his comments on Anne Askew's examinations in Select Works of John Bale, ed. Henry Christmas (PS 1849), esp. pp. 138–44, 190–4.

5 Sherwin, Bailey, ‘Robert Wisdom under persecution, 1541–1543’, this Journal ii (1951), 180–9Google Scholar. See also Greg Walker, ‘Saint or schemer? The 1527 heresy trial of Thomas Bilney reconsidered’, ibid, xl (1989), 219–38.

6 Brodie, ‘Crome’, 295–304; similarly, Richard Hilles to Heinrich Bullinger, in Original Letters Relative to the English Reformation, Written During the Reigns of King Henry VIII., King Edward VI., and Queen Mary, ed. and trans. Hastings Robinson (PS 1846), i. 213.

7 For canon law, see William, Lyndwood, Provinciale, (seu Constitutions Angliae), Oxford 1679, Lib. v, tit. 5, ‘De Haereticis’, esp. pp. 295–304.Google Scholar

8 Millar, Maclure, The Paul's Cross Sermons 1534–1642, Toronto 1958, 15–18.Google Scholar

9 Davis, John F., Heresy and Reformation in the South-East of England: 1520–1559, London 1983, esp. pp. 6–19. Henry's involvement was particularly clear in the case of John Lambert in 1538: AM v. 229–36.Google Scholar

10 See the statutes 2 Hen. iv. c. 15; 25 Hen. vm. c. 14 (Statutes of the Realm, London 1963, ii. 125–8; iii. 454–5).

11 For examples, see Whatmore, L. E., ‘The sermons 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; Sermons and Remains of Hugh Latimer, Sometime Bishop of Worcester, Martyr, 1555, ed. George Elwes Corrie (PS 1845), 413–14.Google Scholar

12 Robert, Crowley, The confutation of .xiii. Articles whereunto Mcolas Shaxton, late byshop of Salilbutye subscribed and caused be setforthe in print theyere of our Lorde .M.C.xlvi. when he recanted in Smithfielde at London at the burning ofmestres Anne Askue, London 1548, STC 6082, sig. A2V. Similarly, John Bale, Yet a course at the Romyshefoxe. A dysclosynge or openynge of the Manne of synne… wherby Wyllyam Tolwyn was then newlye professed at paules crosse openlye into Antichristes Romyshe relygyon, comp. John Harryson (pseud.), [Antwerp] 1543, STC 1309, sig. A2V. Robert Wisdom thought the godly would be moved by his recantation and pity his foolishness. A small portion of his revocation was printed in Josiah Pratt's edition of The Acts and Monuments, v, appendix xxii*. The original is Emmanuel College, Cambridge, MS 261, fos 88r-i3Ov. See also Wisdom's ‘Vindication’, written in the Lollard's Tower before his recantation, printed in John Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials, Oxford 1822, i (ii). 463–79; Emman. Coll., MS261, fo. 108v.Google Scholar

13 The only known printed Henrician examples are from the London diocese. They appeared as leaflets or pamphlets, and have survived only in second printings, or by being incorporated into other works. The recantations by Seton and Tolwyn were preserved in a revised edition: The declaracion made at Poules Crosse in the Cytye of London/ the fourth sonday of Aduent/by Alexander Seyton/and mayster Willyam Tolwyn/persone of S. Anthonynes in the sayd cytye of London, theyere of our lord god M.D.XLI. Newly corrected & amended, London [1542?], STC 22249. 5- Others include Shaxton's recantation, printed in Crowley's Confutation and Tolwyn's submission in Bale's Romyshe foxe. Others that were printed have left no trace, including Askew's 1545 submission, which was printed shortly before she was executed the following year. See GL, MS 9531–12, pt 1, fo. iogr; AM v. 542–3, 548–9. Copies of their statements were distributed at the recantations in 1543 of Wisdom, Thomas Becon, and Robert Singleton: GL, MS 9531–12, pt 1, fos 44r-5v; AM v. appendix xn. For Edwardine recantations, see DrSmith's, Richard A Godly and Faythfull Retraction made and published at Paules crosse in London, theyeare ofoure Lorde God 1547. the 15 . daye of May, London 1547, STC 22822; idem. A Playne Declaration made at Oxforde the 24. daye of July, London 1547, STC 22824. (I owe this reference to Colin Armstrong).Google Scholar

14 AM iv. 624. See also Seton, The declaration, sig. B2r.

15 Emman. Coll., MS 261, fos 107r-8r, 115r-v, 124r-v; GL, MS 9531/12, pt. 1, fo. 44r; AM v. app. xii; Charles, Wriothesley, A Chronicle of England during the Reigns of the Tudors, ed. William Douglas Hamilton (Camden n.s. xi, 1875), i. 142–3.Google Scholar

16 Elliot, Rose, Cases of Conscience: alternatives open to recusants and Puritans under Elizabeth I and James I, Cambridge 1975, 72–3, 89, and ch. xi on casuistryGoogle Scholar; Holmes, P. J., Elizabethan Casuistry (Catholic Record Society 67, 1981), esp. pp. 39, 51–5, 63–6, 69–71, 77, 124–6Google Scholar; Sommerville, Johann P., ‘The “new art of lying”: equivocation, mental reservation, and casuistry’, in Edmund Leites (ed.), Conscience and Casuistry in Early Modern Europe, Cambridge 1988, 159–84Google Scholar; Jonsen, Albert R. and Toulmin, Stephen, The Abuse of Casuistry: a history of moral reasoning, London 1988, 137–75.Google Scholar

17 Emman. Coll., MS 261, fo. 93r.

18 BL, MS Harley 417, fo. 94V. See also Crowley, Confutation, sig. C7r; The Writings of John Bradford… Containing Sermons, Meditations, Examinations, ed. Aubrey Townsend (PS 1848), 282–91; Bale, Romyshe foxe, fo. 25r.a

18 Bilney noted that Michal, David's wife, practised deceit blamelessly in I Sam. xix. 12–17, and wrote ‘Hieremiae pium mendacium’ at Jeremiah 28: Batley, J. Y., On a Reformer's Latin Bible: being an essay on the ‘Adversaria’ in the Vulgate of Thomas Bilney, Cambridge 1940, 47–8. John Careless admitted that he ‘lied falsely’ during a Marian examination: AM viii. 164Google Scholar; see especially Perez, Zagorin, Ways of Lying: dissimulation, persecution and conformity in early modern Europe, Cambridge, Mass. 1990.Google Scholar

20 AM iv. 679–80.

21 2 Kings x. 18–32; Batley, Bilney, 39–40.

22 GL, MS 9531/10, fo. 123V (AM v, app. xvi, no. 2); PRO, SP 1/65, fos 160v-1r; BL, MS Harley 425, fo. 13r-v; and LP v, nos 129, 148; and his account of his submission in Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials, iii (ii). 192–204.

23 The manuscript which preserved Crome's explanation was once among Foxe's papers, though it was not mentioned in The Acts and Monuments. It was printed by Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials, iii (ii), 192–204. See also GL, MS 9531/10, fo. 123V (AM v. app. xvi, no. 2); PRO, SP 1/65, fos 160v-1r; BL, MS Harley 425, fo. 13r-v; and LP v, nos. 129, 148.

24 AM v. 32.

25 Ibid. iv. 699. Hilles believed that Crome, ‘together with Latimer, was the first who in our times sowed the pure doctrine of the gospel’: Original Letters, i. 208. Even Thomas Howard, duke of Norfolk, described Crome in 1531 as the finest and most learned preacher in England: LP v, no. 148.

26 GL, MS 9531/10, fo. 127V. The articles against Latimer were copied from the episcopal register and are found in one of Foxe's MSS: BL, MS Harley 425, fos 13r-14r (cf. Remains of Hugh Latimer, 218–19). They are marked ‘Note that these were not subscribed, only registered’. David Wilkins (ed.), Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae, iii, London 1735, 746–7. See also Sermons by Hugh Latimer, Sometime Bishop of Worcester, Martyr, 1555, ed. George Elwes Corrie (PS 1844), 134–5; P R O . SP 6/1, fo. 83r (LP vi, no. 433 (vi)).

27 AM vii. 498; Remains of Hugh Latimer, 218–19, 350; LP v, nos 703, 859–60, 928. Perhaps Latimer was among the friends who counselled Crome in 1531. Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials, iii (ii). 192–204. In 1535, Stokesley inhibited John Hilsey from preaching at Paul's Cross unless he conformed himself in praying for souls departed, as Latimer and Crome had done: PRO, SP 1/94, fos 98r-9v; 1 /88, fo. 82r (LP vii, no. 1643; viii, no. 1054). Latimer later accused Convocation of trying to kill him: Sermons by Hugh Latimer, 46.

28 Emman. Coll., MS 261, fo. 93r. Bale wrote that those who recant were made into a laughing-stock, and were abhorred. He felt that Tolwyn lost his good name forever: Bale, Romyshe foxe, fos 20v, 39r-v.

29 BL, MS Harley 6148, fos 79v-80r; Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies, ed. M . A. E. Wood, London 1848, ii. 189; LP vii, no. 693.

30 This portion of Crome's career has been overlooked by all his biographers. Grantham formed part of the endowment for the chapter: Victoria County History, Wilts, London 1956, iii. 156–7; Valor Ecclesiasticus, London 1810–34, ii. 74; iv. 3–12; Wiltshire County Record Office, Shaxton's register (no class reference), fo. 6r; LAO, episcopal register 27, fo. 63r. He was always listed as absent in the visitations' libri cleri: ibid, MS Vj/2, fo. 22r (1539); MS Vj/13, fo. gr (1551). But for his visits to Lincolnshire see PRO, SP 1/126, fo. 203r-v; LP xii (ii), no. 1138. For bequests to Lincolnshire friends and places see Crome's will.

31 Crome preached at Paul's Cross the Tuesday before Easter, 1537: PRO, SP 1/117, fo. i23r; LP xii (i), no. 726. In 1538, thirty people pulled down the rood at St Margaret Pattens at his instigation: Corporation of London Records Office, repertory 10, fo. 34V; Susan Brigden, ‘Popular disturbance and the fall of Thomas Cromwell and the reformers, 1539–1540’, Historical Journal 24 (1981), 257–78.

32 31 Hen. viii. c. 14 (Statutes of the Realm, iii. 739–43) ; Wriothesley, Chronicle, i. 101; LP xiv (i), no. 1065 (4); Corpus Reformatorum: Philippi Melanchthonis opera quae supersunt omnia, ed. Carolus Gottlieb Bretschneider, Halle 1836, iii, nos 1865, 1868; The Lisle Letters, ed. Muriel St Clare Byrne, London 1981, v, no. 1475.

33 PRO, SP 1/153, fos 25r-8r; AM, app. xvi, nos 1 (misdated in the original), 3; The Registers of All Hallows, Bread Street and ofSt John the Evangelist, Friday Street London, ed. W.Bruce Bannerman (Harleian Society, Registers, xliii, 1913), 155; the will of Alice Wether of London, widow, made 1 May 1538, proved 28 Jul. 1539, PRO, PROB 11/27, fos 232V-3V. Crome witnessed her will. She left money for thirty sermons to be given by reformers, which he was to organise, and a surplice for them to wear. She also left him four pounds and a black gown. Other testators who bequeathed money for him to give sermons included Humphrey Monmouth (1537), William Pratt (1539), and Walter Thomas (1539): Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials, i (ii). 369–74; PRO, PROB n/27, fos 98r-9v, 227r-v, 245v-6r; Susan Brigden, London and the Reformation, Oxford 1989, 391.

34 Correspondence politique de MM. de Castillon el de Marillac Ambassadeurs de France en Angleterre (1537–1542), ed.Jean Kaulek and others, Paris 1885, 171, 174–6, 188, 207–10; AM v. 414–38, esp. p. 433, app. vii, viii; GL, MS 9531/12, pt 1, fo. 38r; Wriothesley, Chronicle, i. 101–4, 114; Original Letters, i. 208; ii. 6r6–17.

35 Brodie, ‘Crome’, 299–304; Hilles to Bullinger, Original Letters, i. 208–15; similarly, GL, MS 9531/12, pt 1, fo. 26r-v (AM v, app. xvi, no. 4). But see Brigden, ‘Popular disturbance’, 257–78, and London, 320–4.

36 The recantation and articles of accusation against Crome were printed by Brodie from a manuscript which cannot now be traced: Brodie, ‘Crome’, 299–304; Hilles to Bullinger, Original Letters, i. 208–15; similarly, GL, MS 9531/12, pt 1, fo. 26r-v (AM v, app. xvi, no. 4). The copy of the recantation Hilles saw may have been printed. See also Brigden, London, 330–-2.

37 According to Bale, Bishop Bonner planned to trap Crome and other preachers if they tried to assist Askew: Anne Askew, ‘The first examination’, in Select Works, 157–8, 162; AM v. 539.

38 For the epistle of the day see The Sarum Missal, ed. J. Wickham Legg, Oxford 1969, 86; GL, MS 9531/12, pt 1, fo. 109V; AM v, app. xvi, doc. 5; Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London, ed. John Gough Nichols (Camden Society liii, 1852), 50–1; Wriothesley, Chronicle, i. 166–7; BL, MS Harley 425, fos 6sr-6r; LP xvi, no. 814 (miscalendared); AM v. 537; viii. 517 (gives the wrong verse). Crome's 1546 recantation has been described most recently by Brigden, London, 363–77.

39 State Papers published under the authority of His Majesty's Commission, London 1830, i (ii). 842–51; APC i. 416–24, 433, 440, 448–9, 458, 464–7, 485, 490, 509–10.

40 BL, MS Harley 425, fos 65r-6r ; Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials, iii (i). 161–4; APC i. 414; Grey Friars, 50–1 . Gospel of the day: Sarum Missal, 147.

41 State Papers, i (ii). 842–8; APCi. 414. Gardiner recalled later of Crome, ‘how deintily was he handled to relieve his conscience!’: The Letters of Stephen Gardiner, ed. James Arthur Muller, Cambridge 1933, 398–9; AM vi. 45.

42 GL, MS 9531/12, pt i,fo. 109V; AMv. app. xvi, docu. no. 6;APCi. 414; Wriothesley, Chronicle, i. 166–7; Grey Friars, 50–1 .

43 Slate Papers, i (ii). 484–9.

44 Wriothesley, Chronicle, i. 166–70; APCi. 417–20, 423–4, 433, 440, 449, 458, 462, 466, 479, 485, 490, 492, 510; StatePapers i (ii). 844–50; LPxxi (i), no. 1027 (2). Wisdom: PRO, SP 1/223, fo.152r; LPxxi(i), no. 1491.

45 AM viii. 700; APCi. 417–19, 492; the will of William Playne, made 26 Apr. 1550, proved 1 Jun. 1550: GL, MS 9051/2, fo. 9r-v.

46 APCi. 424, 462, 467; State Papers, i (ii). 866, 875, 878; LPxxi (i), no. 1383 (49); Bale, Select Works, 218–20; AM v. 545; Crowley, Confutation, esp. sigs C2r-7r; Grey Friars, 51; Wriothesley, Chronicle, i. 170; GL, MS 9531/12, pt 1, fos 108r-gr; AM v, a p p . xvii.

47 Original Letters, Illustrative of English History, comp. Henry Ellis, 2nd ser., London 1827, ii. 176–8.

48 Bale, Select Works, 142, 218/20 , 441; I playne Piers which can not flatter [1550?], STC 19903a, sigs E2v–3r (cited in Fines, Register, s.v. Crome).

49 Bale, Select Works, 142, 218–20, 441. Compare Miles Huggard's account of Askew's execution, that she made rude gestures at Shaxton: The displaying of the Protestantes, & sondry their practises, London 1556, STC 13558, sigs 47r-v, 50V. Crome remained out of favour early in Edward's reign. He was not licensed to preach under the ecclesiastical seal, and there is no record of his preaching again until 1550: PRO, SP 10/2, fo. 122r-v (printed in Richard Watson Dixon's History of the Church of England from the Abolition of the Roman Jurisdiction, London 1881, ii. 485/6, note); Original Letters, i. 80.

50 AM vi. 550–3, 558–9; vii. 178; The Diary of Henry Machyn Citizen and Merchant-Taylor of London, from A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1563, ed. John Gough Nichols (Camden Society xlii, 1848), 80–1. Not all of those imprisoned were executed promptly. John Careless was held for two years until his death from natural causes in 1556 (AM viii. 170). Martin, DNB v. 139. Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials, iii (i). 164–7 and Annals of the Reformation, Oxford 1824, i (i). 545. That Crome may have spent Mary's reign in prison is suggested in his will by the date of a bill he drew up concerning the lease of his house on 10 Dec. 1558.

51 AM vii. 178; Bradford's Psalm: Emman. Coll., MS261, fos I74r-7V, esp. fo. 177r, printed in his Writings, 282–91, esp. p. 290 n. 3. Cardmaker explained that he had temporarily prolonged his life ‘by a policy’; he went to the stake in May 1555. Machyn, Diary, 81; AM vii. 77–85. Barlow convinced Gardiner that he was a Catholic, and was released: AM vii. 78. See also Thomas Sampson to John Calvin: Original Letters, i. 170–1. Of the seventeen who signed the letter of declaration and listed by Bradford, at least four, Barlow, Edmund Laurence, Coverdale, and Crome, survived to Elizabeth's reign. All but Crome were in exile: Christina Garrett, The Marian Exiles, Cambridge 1966, 80–1, 132–4, 216–17.

52 Coverdale, Certain most godly letters, fo. 46.

53 Ibid. The absence of this material from AM 1570 led Strype to doubt Crome's constancy: Ecclesiastical Memorials, iii (i). 165.

54 AM iv. 227.

55 Ibid. viii. 517–21; AM 1563, 674; AMv. 696. For Foxe's omission of material concerning Bilney's trial, see Walker, ‘Bilney’, 232. See Foxe's biography of Latimer, where he wrote that it was not certain whether Latimer subscribed to articles in 1532. If he had, he was brought to do so at length by cruel sentence of death: AM vii. 458–9. In his first edition, Foxe's views were similar to those of John Knox, who wrote that Gardiner and others had compelled Seton ‘to affirm certain things that repugned to his former true doctrine’. Even so, Knox felt that Seton in life and death found God's mercy: The Works of John Knox, ed. David Laing, Edinburgh 1846, i. 54–5.

56 AM 1563, 1118–35; AM 1570, 1731–45; AMvii. 39–45.

57 AM 1570, 1413; AMv. 537.

58 Bale, Romyshe foxe, fos 2v–5r; Declaration; AMv. 446–51; Brigden, London, 335–7. Perhaps Bale answered Tolwyn's recantation and not that of Seton, who recanted with him, because the latter was dead by 1543: LAO, Register xxvn, fo. 79r-v. Bale refers to ‘poor master Tolwyn’ in The Image of Both Churches in Select Works, 441, and, A mysterye of inyquyte, Geneva [Antwerp] 1545, STC 1303, fos 14V, 27V.

59 BL, MS Harley 422, fo. 90r-v: printed in Remains of Hugh Latimer, 221–4, n. 30; AM vii. 4 5 8–9 ; Strype. Ecclesiastical Memorials, iii (i). 372–5 ; AMiv. 697–706. For other examples of Foxe's suppression of evidence, see P., Collinson, ‘Truth and legend: the veracity of John Foxe's Book of Martyrs’, in A. C. Duke and C. A. Tamse (eds), Clio's Mirror: historiography in Britain and the Netherlands, Zutphen 1985, 31–54Google Scholar; Thompson, J. A. F., ‘John Foxe and some sources for Lollard history: notes for a critical approach’ (Studies in Church History ii, 1965), 251–17Google Scholar; Dickens, A. G., ‘The early expansion of Protestantism in England 1520–1558’, Archiv fur Reformationsgeschichte lxxviii (1987), 194.Google Scholar

60 AMv. 696.

61 Bale, Romyshe foxe, fo. 6r; AM vii. 78; Becon, v. 696. On exile, see Joy Shakespeare, ‘Plague and punishment’, in Peter Lake and Maria Dowling (eds), Protestantism and the National Church in Sixteenth-Century England, London 1987, 112–13; Patrick, Collinson, Archbishop Grindal 1519–1583: the struggle for a Reformed Church, London 1979, 68–9.Google Scholar

62 Emman. Coll., MS Q6I, fo. 107V.

63 Bailey, ‘Wisdom’ , 186–8; The Jewel of Joy printed in The Catechism of Thomas Becon… and Other Pieces (PS 1844), 418–24; Bale, Romyshefoxe, sig. H2v; GL, MS9531/12, pt 1, fos 44r-5r; AM v, app. xii. Wisdom went to the continent again during Mary's reign, and Becon was also an exile then: Garrett, Marian Exiles, 84–5, 339–40.

64 Crowley, Confutation, sigs A3r, C1v-2r, C7r, G8r.

65 Ibid. sig. H3V.

66 AM iv. 642; v. 433. Walker does not suppose that the remorse Bilney displayed to his friends was genuine: ‘Bilney’, 232–3.

67 Wether's will, PRO, PROB 11/27, fo. 232V.