Note 34 — Chapter VII

Some account of these English martyrs may not be here out of place. The first knight who suffered death in England for the faith was Adrian Fortescue, beheaded on the 8th of July 1539. After him followed two others, Ingley and Adrian Forrest, “who,” says Goussancourt, “being called on to recognise the king as head of the Church and to approve of his ordinances, chose, rather, courageously to suffer death than to live in delicacy, having made shipwreck of the faith. Thus they gave their lives as gloriously at home as they could ever have done in combat.” Henry offered Sir William Weston, Lord Prior of England (the priors sat in parliament on an equality with the first barons of the realm), a pension of 1000l. a-year; but that knight was so overwhelmed with grief at the suppression of his order that he never received a penny, but soon after died, and was buried in the chancel of the old church of St. James, Clerkenwell. Marmaduke Bohun, whom Goussancourt calls “the blessed,” was beheaded under Queen Elizabeth in 1585. Many others died in prison, in the same reign, from the horrible sufferings endured in their confinement; among whom we find the names of Sir Thomas Mytton and Sir Edward Waldegrave.