Note 180 — Chapter III

Thomas Heath, brother to the late Archbishop of York, was seized at Rochester about 1570, well provided with anabaptist and Arian tracts for circulation. Strype, i. 521. For other instances, see p. 281, 484; Life of Parker, 244; Nalson's Collections, vol. i.; Introduction, p. 39, etc., from a pamphlet written also by Nalson, entitled, Foxes and Firebrands. It was surmised that one Henry Nicolas, chief of a set of fanatics, called the Family of Love, of whom we read a great deal in this reign, and who sprouted up again about the time of Cromwell, was secretly employed by the popish party. Strype, ii. 37, 589, 595. But these conjectures were very often ill-founded, and possibly so in this instance, though the passages quoted by Strype (589) are suspicious. Brandt however (Hist. of Reformation in Low Countries, vol. i. p. 105) does not suspect Nicolas of being other than a fanatic. His sect appeared in the Netherlands about 1555.