Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T17:45:39.030Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Iconoclasm at Rickmansworth, 1522: Troubles of Churchwardens

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Margaret Aston
Margaret Aston
Affiliation:
Castle House, Chipping Ongar, Essex
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

One night in the early 1520s, probably in the first half of 1522, the church of St Mary's, Rickmansworth, was badly damaged by arson. Iconoclasts deliberately set fire to all the images, to the reserved sacrament on the high altar, to the ornaments and jewels in the vestry, and to the rood and organs in the rood loft. The incendiaries made sure of their blaze by wrapping tow around the rood and pushing tow and banner staves through the bars of the chancel to act as fire-lighters. Their conflagration was also assisted by the large amount (280 pounds) of candle wax in the rood loft. At the same time, the offenders broke open the font and scattered the holy water. As a result of these actions, the chancel and vestry of the church were either severely damaged or destroyed.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 40 , Issue 4 , October 1989 , pp. 524 - 552
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BL = British Library; PRO = Public Record Office; HRO = Hertfordshire Record Office; LP = Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII

This investigation would not have started without Colin Richmond, nor have continued as it has, without Derek Plumb. The former showed me the indulgence printed below and generously proposed this presentation; the latter lit on the chancery proceedings relating to it, and pointed out the usefulness of the lay subsidy of 1524–5. I am grateful to them both, and also thank Peter Gwyn and Katharine Pantzer for so kindly answering questions and sending information.

1 BL C.18.e.2 (96); Short-title Catalogue of Books Printed…1475–1640, rev. Jackson, W. A., Ferguson, F. S. and Pantzer, K. F., London 1976–86, 14077 c. 68Google Scholar. This indulgence, with its remarkable recitation of the iconoclasts' actions, has received curiously little attention from historians, though it was noticed in the VCH Hertfordshire ii. 385, after being cited by Cussans, J. E., History of Hertfordshire, 3 vols, London 1870–81, iii/2. 149Google Scholar, Hundred of Cashio. Cussans reports that the indulgence was found pasted inside the cover of a book bought by the British Museum at Dr Cotton's sale in January 1868. It is printed in facsimile by Cameron, K. W., The Pardoner and His Pardons. Indulgences circulating in England on the eve of the Reformation, Hartford, Conn. [1965], 49Google Scholar.

2 VVolsey's death provides the terminus ante quern. The date 1521 is derived from the evidence of the type, since the indulgence was printed by John Skot, whose dates of activity are 1521–37. The absence of a proper ‘sh’ ligature made Miss Pantzer incline to a date between 1521 and 1525 for the indulgence, which has now been borne out by other evidence. On the productions of Skot (‘a slovenly printer’) see F. Isaac, English and Scottish Printing Types (Bibliographical Society Facsimiles and Illustrations ii, 1930), nos 50–2; idem, English Printers' Types of the Sixteenth Century, Oxford 1936, 11Google Scholar.

3 PRO C1/593/49–50: this action can be dated between 1 Nov. 1525 and 18 Oct. 1529 (from internal evidence and the period of Wolsey's chancellorship).

4 I have considered the significance of such nocturnal image-breaking in ‘Iconoclasm in England: official and clandestine ’, in Iconoclasm vs. Art and Drama, ed. Davidson, C. and Nichols, A. E., Kalamazoo, Mich. 1989, 47–91Google Scholar.

5 Robert Toneys or Tones (d. 1526), canon of York, keeper of the hanaper from 8 June 1521 and clerk of the court of chancery, was a leading agent and councillor of Wolsey's in the 1520s. He had entered Wolsey's service by 1515 and became his registrar: through his friend William Burbank, Wolsey's secretary, Toneys received praise in letters of Erasmus; Opus Epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami, ed. Allen, P. S. and Allen, H. M., Oxford 1906–58, iv. 333–4 no. 1138Google Scholar; v. 541 no. 1492; Pollard, A. F.. Wolsey, London 1953, 196, 240–1Google Scholar; PRO, C66/637, m. 22.

6 I have found no mention of the collectors in the printed register of Bishop Clerk of Bath and Wells, or in the unprinted registers of Bishops Audley, Fox and Sherborne, of Salisbury, Winchester and Chichester, respectively.

7 HRO, ASA 2 AR, fo. 183r. Bequests of this kind were common well before this date, so it would be unwise to relate Isabel's bequest to the arson damage. She had been a widow for many years, her husband Thomas Hamond having died in 1499, ibid. fo. 96r.

8 Thomas Cotton (Coton), whose career is considered below, was already to be found at Rickmansworth in 1479, before he became vicar.

9 HRO, ASA 2AR, fo. 190r. ‘Item, to the reparacions of the paroch church of Rikmersworth 3s 4d.’ William Dolte was a man of estate (disposing of rights in a house and land called Canons), listed in the subsidy of Jan. 1524 with £8-worth of goods and three servants, PRO, E179/120/114, m. 5r.

10 HRO, ASA 2 AR, fo. 209v. John a Dene, yeoman (whose will, like Dolte's, was witnessed by Thomas Cotton), was the father of Thomas a Dene – mentioned below – to whom he left his shop with all the implements belonging to it. He gave his age as 25 in Aug. 1495, ASA 2 AR, fo. 80v. With goods assessed at £10 in the subsidies of 1524 and 1525, he was among the wealthiest top twenty of the parish of Rickmansworth, PRO, E179/120/114, m. 4r; E179/120/134, m. 51r.

11 HRO, ASA 2 AR, fo. 238r.

12 John a Dene's will seems to be the last in the sequence that Thomas Cotton witnessed from 1488 on. William Man was vicar of Rickmansworth, witnessing the will of John Holting the clder, on 1 Feb. 1534/5, HRO, ASA 2 AR, fo. 231v. The vicar might well have resigned because of old age. There was a Thomas Cotton, MA, who became rector of Greenford, Middlesex (about eleven miles from Rickmansworth) in Aug. 1518, who resigned in 1528, at which date the Rickmansworth vicar would have been sixty-three, Reg. FitzJames, Guildhall Library, London, MS 9531/9, fo. 77V (lxxv); Hennessy, G., Novum repertorium ecclesiasticum parochiale Londinense, London 1898, 175Google Scholar.

13 PRO, E179/120/114, m. 4v, E179/120/134, m. 5r; HRO, ASA 2 AR, fo. 238r. The only relatives mentioned in Wedon's will were his wife Alice and son Thomas. John Knight was one of the witnesses and probably also an overseer. See below n. 62 on the Wedons, or a Wedons.

14 PRO, E179/120/114. m/4v, E179/120/134, m. 5r; HRO, ASA 2 AR, fos 237v-8r. William Evelyn was estimated in the 1525 subsidy at £3; in 1540–1 at £20, E179/120/143. The will does not specify which of the Chalfont parishes he had land in.

15 PRO, E 179/120/114, m. 5r, E179/120/134, m. 5v; HRO, ASA 5 AR, fo. 37v (the vicar, William Man, was one of the witnesses to this will, which mentions the testator's brother John). This preamble contrasts with the conventional phrase used by testators like John a Dene or Henry Wedon, who committed their souls ‘unto almighty God and to our blessed lady saint Mary and to all the holy company of heaven’. The will of William Spone (1 Oct. 1538), written by the vicar's deputy John Rolff, and witnessed by Foderley, which opened in the traditonal way, left the testator's body ‘to be buryed in the parisshe churche of Rykmersworthe before the Roode’ – suggesting he might have been a believer in the miracle claimed by Wolsey's indulgence. Spone had an official connection with the More, HRO, ASA 3 AR, fo. 15v, 4 AR fo. 26v.

16 PRO, E179/120/114, m. 3v, E179/120/134, m. 3v, 4r.

17 HRO, ASA 3 AR, fo. 2r. Carter also had an interest in woodland in the parish of Watford, which is on the main road between Rickmansworth and St Albans. Besides leaving sums to their ‘mother church’ of St Albans, quite a few testators in the archdeaconry of St Albans were still making bequests in the 1530s to the shrine of St Alban.

18 PRO, E179/120/114, m. 5r (4d. was payable on each of these funds).

19 HRO, ASA 2 AR, fos 45r, 47r. These donations could alternatively have related to the chapel of St Katherine (referred to below) in Rickmansworth Church. Various wills included bequests for repairs to the chapel of ‘Our Lady of Ilond’, and testators of 1519 and 1526 requested burial in this chapel ‘standing in the churchyard of Rickmansworth’. Rickmansworth Church was rebuilt twice in the nineteenth century and only the west tower remains from earlier structures.

20 HRO, ASA 7/2, fos 74r–5r, 76r–7r, 78, and for the depositions cited below ASA 8/1, fos 54r–6r. In this case (‘Belcher in causa compoti’) Belch was cited as warden of the fraternity on articles concerning ‘anime sue salutem’; ‘parochiani obiicerunt quod non reddidit compotum pro tempore administracionis sue’. The first three witnesses (Robert Rolle, John Mylward and Thomas Spenser) seem to have been examined on 29 Nov. 1532; William Creke's and Henry Gonner's evidence was heard on 18 Jan. 1533, when Thomas a Dene was cited.

21 See note n. 55 below.

22 PRO, E179/120/114, m. 4r, E179/120/134, m. 5r.

23 Although the term litteratus is only used of Creke, a Dene and Gonner, it seems likely that the first three (older) witnesses also had some degree of literacy (see below on Spenser); possibly these differences of description derived from the different dates of their examinations.

24 PRO, E179/120/114, m. 4; E179/120/134, m. 5r. Henry Gonner and Thomas a Dene (the former working for his father, the latter already independent and employing a servant) were listed with goods of £3 and £2 respectively. Sec nn. 10 and 25 for the wills of John a Dene and Roger Gonner.

25 HRO, ASA 7/1, fo. 45v. In 1524 and 1525 Roger Gonner's goods were assessed at 40 marks (£26 13s. 4d.), and he had three waged servants. His will (dated 31 Aug. 1528, proved 21 Feb. 1532, ASA 2 AR, fo. 219r), in which he expected burial in Rickmansworth Church, refers to lands in Isleworth, Middlesex, as well as in Rickmansworth, and some of the land his son Henry was to inherit after the death of his wife Joan, descended from his brother-in-law, John Kyng. A Joan Gonner was living at the time of her death in 1558, ASA 6 AR, fo. 129, in the Rickmansworth parsonage with her son Roger.

26 PRO, E179/120/114, m. 4v, E 179/120/134, m. 5. Other Belches assessed for subsidy in Chorleywood were George's brother Richard, who died in 1528 (£4 goods), and William – a husbandman who died in 1526 – (20s. from land).

27 HRO, ASA 2 AR, fo. 216v; 6 AR, fos 175v–6v. Haydon left stock and grain to his two sons and two daughters and was to be buried in the churchyard, whereas Belch, a much more propertied man at the time of his death, expected burial inside Rickmansworth Church. Belch's will (below n. 6i) was taken up with providing for the maintenance of his household and estate by his three sons and for the upbringing of ‘all my yong children’.

28 HRO, ASA 7/2, fos 48r–9v. The family of Belch or Belche, Belcher (see n. 27) is found at Rickmansworth from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century.

29 Newcourt, R., Repertoriant ecclesiasticum parochiale Londinense, London 1708–10, i. 862–3Google Scholar. Being only about eleven miles away, Rickmansworth was an easy ride from St Albans. Documents relating to the vicarage and the abbey's Rickmansworth lands are to be found in BL, Mss Harl. 433 fo. 153r. and Arundel 34 (a St Albans register) Tos 37v–45v. Sec also Levett, A. E., Studies in Manorial History, Oxford 1938, 98, 113–14Google Scholar.

30 Already before this Wolsey was to be found at the More, for instance, in the spring of 1521, when an informer communicated material relating to the duke of Buckingham, Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, ed. Brewer, J. S. et al. , London 1862–1932, iii/i. 490 no. 1283Google Scholar.

31 A Chronicle of … King Edward the Fourth, by John Warkworth, ed. Halliwell, J. O. (Camden Society, 1839), 25, 70Google Scholar.

32 Cussans, History iii/2. 149; VCH Herts ii. 376. Pollard, Wolsey, 325, cites du Bellay thinking the More more splendid than Hampton Court. The cardinal's sumptuous building works included galleries ‘all gilted above’; LP Addenda 1/i. 156–7 no. 467. The king seems to have taken over the property when Wolsey became persona non grata by the end of March 1530, and Katherine of Aragon was relegated to the More from August 1531 to the summer of 1532.

33 Rymer, T., Foedera, London 1739–45, vi/2. 21–32Google Scholar; LP iv/i. 717–18 nos 1600–3.

34 PRO, SP1/35, fo. 264r; LP iv/i. 715 no. 1591. Reg. Warham (Lambeth), ii. fo. 385v, records Warham at Lambeth on 26 Aug. 1525.

35 Cotton gave evidence in the summer of 1495 on the validity of a Rickmansworth will, and then stated that he was aged thirty and more, HRO, ASA 2 AR, fo. 80v.

36 HRO, ASA 2 AR, fos 35r, 42v, wills of John Gardyner (16 Nov. 1479) and John Rydale (24 Nov. 1482).

37 Registrum Abbatiae Jokannis Whethamstede, ed. Riley, H. T. (Rolls Series, 1872–3), ii. 118–19, 124, 189–90, 199, 227, 236–7, 273Google Scholar; Newcourt, Repertorium i. 862–3; Heath, P., English Parish Clergy on the Eve of the Reformation, London 1969, 55, 177Google Scholar; Cussans, History iii/2. 117, 161. (George Daniel, esquire, died in 1491/2, HRO, ASA 2 AR, fo. 62r. On John Ashby see below.) Cussans (followed by the VCH Herts ii. 385) interpreted Hemingford's apostasy as probably ‘nothing more than a leaning towards Lollardism’. As vicar of Sarratt, Hemingford was left ro marks by Eudo Stokker in June 1473 to celebrate masses at Rickmansworth and other Rickmansworth testators left him money in the following years. He was still vicar of Rickmansworth in Aug. 1483 (when he witnessed the will of John Wynkborn, esquire) and was supervisor ofa will in July 1484; in Oct. 1491 Cotton is mentioned as vicar, HRO, ASA 2 AR, fos 14r, 24r, 25r, 35r, 36v, 41v, 45r, 60r. See Emden, A. B., A Biographical Register of the University of Cambridge to 1500, Cambridge 1963, 163Google Scholar, for the Thomas Cotton who was scholar of Eton and King's Colleges, holding a fellowship at the latter from 1479 till c. 1485. If this is our Cotton he was sixty-six in 1525.

38 The Courts of the Archdeaconry of Buckingham 1483–1523, ed. Elvey, E. M. (Buckinghamshire Record Society xix, 1975), 170 no. 241, 175 no. 247Google Scholar.

39 PRO, C1/595/13, C1/596/21; HRO, ASA 2 AR, fo. 91r. Cotton's co-defendant in this suit was John Fazakerley, nephew of William Seward. In 1498 Thomas Seward [Sywarde] had wished John Fazakerley to have first refusal of the purchase of his house; it was the custody of the deeds relating to a messuage and garden that was at issue in the subsequent suit.

40 Several testators left sums for the repair of the via regia, called ‘ridgeway lane’, leading from Rickmansworth towards London, HRO, ASA 2 AR, fos 15v, 33r, 41v.

41 HRO, ASA 2 AR, fos 80v, 83r, 106r, 111r, 113r, 117v. Roger Belch died in 1476, ibid. fo. 24r. John Stokker wished to be buried in the churchyard of Rickmansworth ‘besyde my frendes that are partid to the mercy of god’. His wife thought better of this.

42 HRO, ASA 2 AR, fos 129r, 132v, 142. Metcalfe requested burial ‘within the parissh chirch of Rikmersworth before the Image of Saint Christofer’. Gibbs left 3s. 4d. ‘fabrico novi vestiarii’, and Durrant s. 8d. ‘edificacioni diete ecclesie in hoc anno fiend’.

43 Ibid. fo. 151v. The executors and discreet of the parish were to hire ‘an honest preest which can syng in the quere and also can doo such thynges as are convenient to a discrete preest to doo’, his stipend to be 9 marks. The supervisors of this will were Thomas Cotton and Thomas Creke esquire. Stocker's farm lies across the River Colne, a little way downstream from Rickmansworth, Gover, J. E. B. et al. , The Place-names of Hertfordshire, Cambridge 1938, 83Google Scholar.

44 PRO, PROB 11/11; HRO, ASA 2 AR, fo. 95r. Ashby's will, which opens with expressions of his own unworthiness and biblical-sounding thoughts on the transitoriness of human life (‘…noo permanent citie of dwellyngplace butt as a floure muste vanishe and passe hens…’), went on to express his ‘stedfaste assurance in thynfynite and precellyng mercy of god…and through the merites of his glorious passioun I undoubtedly truste to be partyner ofthat eternall reward perpetuall felicite and pardurable joie which is ordened and prepared unto his synguler lovers… ’. This trust was committed to the intercession of the glorious Virgin. Apart from 3s. 4d. to the high altar of Rickmansworth, or whatever church he was buried in, Ashby left nothing to any church fabric, and he stipulated ‘that for the pompe of the worldc noo dyner be made’ at his month's mind, except for the priests and clerks and those invited by his wife and executors.

45 HRO, ASA 2 AR, fo. 159r (will dated 21 Oct. 1514, proved 1 Mar. 1515, and stated to be ‘written with the hand of the said vicar of Ryk’). Anne Ashby's will is so very different from her husband's that one wonders whether they held opposing views on church pomp and ceremony, or whether it was by agreement that he left his widow to make these provisions. Is it significant that she seems so much closer than him to Thomas Cotton?

46 The Lanterne of Light, ed. Swinburn, L. M. (Early English Text Society, os cli, 1917), 41Google Scholar; Aston, M., Lollards and Reformers, London 1984, 150Google Scholar.

47 Foxe, John, The Acts and Monuments (hereinafter cited as A & M), ed. Pratt, J., London 1877, iv. 124Google Scholar; Thomson, J. A. F., The Later Lollards 1414–1520, Oxford 1965, 87Google Scholar.

48 Foxe, op. cit. iv. 235.

49 HRO, ASA 2 AR, fos 129r, 132r, 142r.

50 Ibid, fos 130r, 151v, refer to a Dene holding this office in 1506 and 1513.

51 Fox, A & M iv. 226.

52 Ibid. 233.

53 PRO, E179/120/114, m. 4r, E179/120/134, m. 5r include Thomas Spenser, 20 marks in goods, John Knight, £4 in goods, and William and John Groser, 40s. in goods each. William Groser was still alive in 1543 (see below) when he was appointed overseer by Knight.

54 George Wyngborne, or Wynkborn, gendeman, whose income from lands (those lying in Watford, as well as at Croxley in the parish of Rickmansworth, where he heads the tax return) was put at £10 in the subsidy, died in Nov. 1526, HRO, ASA 2 AR, fos 197v–8r.

55 There are two copies of Spenser's will: HRO, ASA 3 AR, fos 15v–16v, 4 AR, fos 27r–8r, of which the latter seems better. Shaw was left 33s. 4d. to sing for three months for Spenser's and all Christian souls and, if unable to do this himself, to ‘commytte hit to som of his brethern ’. Besides his Rickmansworth property (which he left, with his bakehouse, to his wife Anne), Thomas Spenser held land in Middlesex and Buckinghamshire. Henry Gonner was one of the overseers of this will, and William Groser one of its witnesses. (The vicar is not mentioned.)

56 Was this Robert Norbury, the Benedictine who was admitted BTh at Oxford in 1523? Shaw was a doctor of theology by 1549 and died in 1596, Emden, A. B., A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford A.D. 1501 to 1540, Oxford 1974, 417, 512Google Scholar.

57 HRO, ASA 2 AR, fo. 202v. John Groser witnessed the wills of John Stokker and Edward Metcalfe (above nn. 41–2) in 1502 and 1507. Did he have a change of heart thereafter?

58 PRO, E179/120/114, m. 4, E179/120/134, m. 5. The Subsidy Rolls include, besides Stephen Randal (£7) with his sons Robert (20s. in wages) and John (goods £4) in the hamlet of West Hyde: Andrew Randal (40s.. goods) in Croxley hamlet; and a John Randoll (goods of £10 and a servant) in Rickmansworth itself. The variously spelt Randal, Randolf and Randalff seem all to be the same family. Stephen left half his Rickmansworth land and his ‘nether house’ to his youngest son Robert. This will was witnessed by John Butterfield, Roger Fuller and John Man (all surnames that featured in Longland's proceedings, Foxc, A & M iv. 230, 238; HRO, ASA 2 AR, fos 195r, 216r.

59 HRO, ASA 6 AR, fo. 24v; A 15/713. Obviously, there must be some doubt about this identification.

60 Knight seems to have been close to the Belches. In 1528 he was co-executor with George Belch of the will of George's brother Richard, and three years later he appears again witnessing a will with George. His service with Thomas Spenser as executor for Thomas Baker in 1536 is indicative of working friendships (and the three of them were Henry Evelyn's executors in 1536), HRO, ASA 2 AR, fos 204v, 216v, 237v, 238r; 5 AR, fo. 77.

61 Given the controversial nature of preambles, it would be unwise to rest too much on these phrases. (None of these wills seems to have had clerical witnesses.) HRO, ASA 2 AR, fo. 216v, 5 AR, fo. 77, 6 AR, fos 175v–6r, 1 AW 10, fos 1–2. and above n. 27.

62 Another piece of Foxe's evidence which could have some bearing on Rickmansworth is John a Lee's denunciation ofjohn a Wecdon, Foxc, A & M iv. 239. Various John Wcdons are listed in the 1524–5 subsidy rolls at Rickmansworth (where the family seems to have been extensive), at Watford, and also in Buckinghamshire, PRO E179/120/114, m. 4v, E179/120/134, m. 5, E179/120/143; HRO, ASA 2 AR, fos 80v. 186r; 3 AR fo. 77r. See The Certificate of Musters for Buckinghamshire in 1522, ed. Chibnall, A. C. (Bucks Ree. Soc. xvii, 1973), 82, 237–40, 272–3Google Scholar, and Subsidy Roll for the County of Buckingham, ed. Chibnall, A. C. and Woodman, A. Vere (Bucks Ree. Soc. viii, 1950 for 1944), 16, 29, for Wedons in Chesham and WycombeGoogle Scholar.

63 Foxe, ibid. iv. 208, 213.

64 Ibid. 209, 210. For Lollards disparaging images of the Virgin see Aston, M., England's Iconoclasts, i, Oxford 1988, 107–9Google Scholar.

65 Foxe, op. cit. iv. 213, cf. 211. Foxe's record of Man's second trial gives him as being of the diocese of London, but it is also made plain that, before that ‘he fled the diocese and jurisdiction of Lincoln’, 209–10. For Man's excommunication in the diocese of Lincoln on 18 Aug. 1511 see PRO, C85/115/10. His excommunication for relapse was in the diocese of London, 1 Mar. 1518, PRO, C85/126/28. For his career and influence see Thomson, Later Lollards, 87, 92–3, 137, 170–1, 243; Davis, J. F., Heresy and Reformation in the South East of England, London 1983, 57, 61Google Scholar; Cross, Claire, Church and People 1450–1660, London 1976, 39–40, 70Google Scholar.

66 Though it is not clear when Man settled in Amersham (after leaving Newbury), it certainly became his home base (where he had a house) some years before the proceedings taken by Bishop Smith in 1511, Foxe, A & M iv. 211, 213, 228, 230.

67 HRO, ASA 2 AR, fos 123r, 127v; 3 AR, fo. 78r; 297 AW 15. Richard Man was probably married to a Smart, as he bequeathed land that had come to his wife from John Smart. The Kcntishcs were numerous in St Albans at this time. Other wills of the Man family in the same St Albans parish are those of Richard Man (d. May 1531 leaving bequests to William, Richard and Robert Man) and the weaver John Manne, who died in 1539 leaving two sons, Stephen and Thomas, ASA 2 AR, fo. 216r, 3 AR, fo. 15v, 4 AR fo. 26r. The holywell ward of St Albans fielded for the 1524 subsidy Stephen Man (£10 goods), John Man of Cropthorne, and John Man alias ‘Chalney’ (£8 goods), who had as two of his three servants Thomas and Stephen Man, PRO, E 179/120/114, mm. 2, 3r.

68 Foxe, op. cit. iv. 206, 215–16. Thomas Man had reportedly taught in Essex, including Colchester, and he was also said to have spirited suspects out of Amersham into East Anglia, ibid. 211, 213, 214.

69 Besides his inventory, Man's will survives in both the original paper version and the registered copy, HRO, ASA 6 AR, fo. 184r, 1 AW 75, A 25/326. These show that he was well off. The total of his goods and chattels was £24 1s. 8d.; his well-furnished six-roomed house contained painted cloths decorating the hall, damask hangings, cushions and carpets in the parlour, a feather bed with down pillows and counterpane (valued at £4) and a desk with lock; the vicar owned four gowns and a vestment of white and red damask. There was 13s. cash in his house when he died.

70 HRO, ASA 6 AR, fo. 184r, 1 AW 75. Alexander inherited 10s. in money and £1 of the debt owed by Robert Man; he was also a beneficiary this year from the will of George Belch. For Bishop Bonner's ownership and citation of a Wycliffite Bible, see The Holy Bible…in the Earliest English Versions, ed. Forshall, J. and Madden, F., Oxford 1850, i. p. xlv no. 46Google Scholar; Aston, England's Iconoclasts i. 396. In Mary's reign Richard Alexander was involved in a suit in Star Chamber against George Gonner, Edward Wedon and others, about the felling of wood in Newlands Wood, Rickmansworth, belonging to the bishop of London, PRO, STAC4/10/2. Richard Alexander, esquire, of Rickmansworth, died in 1586, PRO, PROB 11/69, 11/70, 11/75.

71 Foxc, A & M iv. 585 (‘Much Cornard’, the location of this Robert Man, is presumably Great Cornard near Sudbury); v. 33. The debts of the London relative had gone to court: ‘Robert Man of London ovvyth him for certen money borowed of the sayd vycar at severall tymes as apperyth by one accon’ dependyng in the kinges benche £17’; also ‘Robert Man owyth him more for certen money layd owt for him to one Mr Draper of London’: HRO, 1 AW 75. The will also refers to the testator's cousin John Man (left a flock bed), and his goods were divided between Richard Man and Cicely Hodson. This conjuction of William, Richard and Robert Man might point to identification with the three beneficiaries of the 1531 will of Richard Man (n. 67 above).

72 See above n. 37.

73 Aston, Lollards and Reformers, 167–77.

74 Meyer, Carl S., ‘Henry VIII burns Luther's books, 12 May 1521’, this JOURNAL ix (1958) 173–87Google Scholar, explains the diplomatic background to the change of attitude towards Luther and Luther's books that took place in 1520–1.

75 Foxc, A & M iv. 241–2; Wilkins, D., Concilia Magnae Britanniae, London 1737, iii. 698Google Scholar. On Longland's proceedings sec Bowker, M., The Henrician Reformation. The diocese of Lincoln under John Longland 1521–1547, Cambridge 1981, 58–62Google Scholar.

76 Foxe, op. cit. iv. 124, 245. Foxe's accuracy is substantiated to the extent that the four he names (Barnard, Morden, Rave and Scrivener) were all signified excommunicate as relapsed heretics on 28 Jan. 1521, PRO, C85/115/13. This was not the only burning to take place at Amcrsham, for Foxc (who misdates the event) reports William Tillcsworth's death there, op. cit. 123; this was in 1511, coinciding with Thomas Man's Lincoln diocese trial, Thomson, Later Lollards, 87, 91.

77 Foxe, op. cit. iv. 224–5, 227, 230'1 (for quotation), 232. Agnes Ashford was said to have taught James Morden. The depositions also mention Alice and Richard Tredway and speak of Thomas as being of Chcsham. Ashley Green, home ofMordens, was part of the parish of Chesham. Readings were also reported to have taken place in the house of Richard Ashford at Chesham. The family relationships linking Mordens, Tredways and Ashfords are intricate; cf. Thomson, op. cit. 90–2. Foxe speaks of Richard Ashford of Walton-on-Thames (who was tried in the diocese of Winchester in Nov. 1521, perhaps as a result of these proceedings), as having the aliases of Nash orTredway; he also shows that James Morden's brother Richard and sister Marion (both of Chesham) were under suspicion. A Marion Morden of Ashley Green died in the autumn of 1521, making dispositions which indicate that the Mordens were closely related to the Wedons, as well as the Ashfords. Her executors were Robert Wedon and Thomas Harding – the latter name suggestive of Lollard complicity since Thomas Harding (who seems to have lived in both Amersham and Chesham), having abjured under Bishop Smith and been named to Longland in 1521, was finally sentenced and burned in Chesham in 1532, Courts of the Archdeaconry of Buckingham, 329–30 no. 402; Foxe, op. cit. iv. 123, 126, 225, 234, 580–2; Thomson, op. cit. 92; Reg. Longland (Lincoln), i. fo. 228.

78 PRO, E179/120/114, m. 4v, cf. E179/120/134, m. 5v; HRO, ASA 2 AR, fo. 201r. Walter Tredway was churchwarden of Amersham in 1520, Courts of the Archdeaconry of Buckingham, 298 no. 278M. His will (of 3 Sept. 1546, Bucks RO, D/A/We/8/80) refers to his lands in Rickmansworth: I owe this reference to Derek Plumb, whose PhD dissertation, ‘John Foxe and the later Lollards of the Thames Valley’, Cambridge 1987 (cited at p. 272)Google Scholar, identifies many of the suspects of Chesham and Amersham; see also idem, ‘The social and economic spread of rural Lollardy: a reappraisal’, Studies in Church History xxiii (1986), 111–29Google Scholar. On the Chiltern Lollards see also Hope, Andrew, ‘Lollardy: the stone the builders rejected?’, in Lake, P. and Dowling, M. (eds), Protestantism and the National Church in Sixteenth Century England, London 1987, 12–17Google Scholar. For Buckinghamshire Tredways (including Thomas at Chesham in 1522, but not in 1524) see Certificate of Musters for Buckinghamshire, 82, 231, 236–8; Subsidy roll…Buckingham, 15.

79 Heresy Trials in the Diocese of Norwich, 1428–31, ed. Tanner, Norman P. (Camden Society, 4th ser. xx, 1977), 134, 146, 154Google Scholar.

80 Hampshire Record Office, A1/19, Reg. Foxe, 3, fo. 74; Thomson, Later Lollards, 89. The heretics in Fox's diocese were linked with those in other areas, including the Chilterns.

81 Wiltshire Record Office, D1/2/14, Reg. Audley, fo. 183v.

82 Ibid. Drake had said that ‘water is not of the substance of baptyme’, and that God would not punish any infant named without water or the required form of words. Drake's sixth error was his assertion ‘that sith the tyme that Adam and Eve were delyvered fro hell no saule descended thethir nether shall unto the daie of dome or universall Iugement’.

83 HRO, ASA 7/1, fo. 23r. For the Rickmansworth Randals see above n. 58. Marion Randal was among Longland's suspects, and Dormer was one of the Amersham men who abjured, Foxc, A & M iv. 220, 232, 234. Another possible connection with our parish is Alice Holting, ibid. 228, as there was a Rickmansworth family of that name, HRO, ASA 2 AR, fos 80v, 231v.

84 HRO, ASA 7/1, fos 42v, 46v, 47r–8r. These proceedings include the instrument of Woodward's submission, with his rather shaky sign of the cross, fo. 48r. Woodward's sentence is on a par with those imposed by Longland six years earlier, Foxe, op. cit. 244.

85 Foxe, op. cit. iv. 226 (words of Roger Squire, reported by Thomas Holmes, who detected the Rickmansworth group). See 218, 242, 245, for Foxe's remarks on how kindred and neighbours were forced to incriminate each other under oath.

86 Ibid. iv. 237–8.

87 BL, MS Harl. 421, fo. 28r, from the 1528 confession of Edmund Tyball, reporting words of Richard Fox, Davis, Heresy and Reformation, 64. For the similar view of Robert Goldstone, glazier, see Foxe, A & M v. 32.

88 The bottom of the page is torn and some words are missing.