Thank You Kimberly! Very interesting....
according to Wikipedia..which had some footnotes and book recommendations:
unfortunately for Barton, the existing order changed when Henry VIII, in order to obtain an annulment from Catherine of Aragon, decided to break with Rome, and create the Church of England. Barton was strongly opposed to the Henrician Reformation, and around 1532 she began prophesying that if the King would remarry he would die shortly thereafter. (He would in fact live for 15 years.) Remarkably, Barton went unpunished for nearly a year, in large part because she appears to have been more popular than the King in many quarters. In fact, Barton was tried for treason only after supporters of the King had spread rumors that Barton was engaged in sexual relationships with her priests. Others asserted that Barton suffered from mental illness. With her reputation damaged, in 1533 the crown arrested her and forced Barton to make either a real confession or a fabricated one. According to the confession presented Barton admitted that she had fabricated her revelations[2]. In 1534 she was executed for treason and hanged at the Tyburn gallows in Westminster[2]
from: References
1. ^ "Elizabeth Barton". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/Elizabeth_Barton.
2. ^ a b
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_%281913%29/Elizabeth_Barton3. Diane Watt, ‘Barton, Elizabeth (c.1506–1534)’, 'Oxford Dictionary of National Biography',
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/1598Looking at the "engaged in sexual relations" which seems a pattern in Henry VIIII's dealings with Women in general and probably the times also.... I went to the Catholic Encyclopedia and found this part interesting also:
Protestant authors allege that these confessions alone are conclusive of her imposture, but Catholic writers, though they have felt free to hold divergent opinions about the nun, have pointed out the suggestive fact that all that is known as to these confessions emanates from Cromwell or his agents; that all available documents are on his side; that the confession issued as hers is on the face of it not her own composition; that she and her companions were never brought to trial, but were condemned and executed unheard; that there is contemporary evidence that the alleged confession was even then believed to be a forgery. For these reasons, the matter cannot be considered as settled, and unfortunately, the difficulty of arriving at any satisfactory and final decision now seems insuperable.
http://www.catholic.org/encyclopedia/view.php?id=1553 Interesting also....
Thomas More escaped...
here is another paragraph from the Catholic Encylopedia:
In January, 1534, a bill of attainder was "framed" against her and thirteen of her sympathizers, among whom were Fisher and More. Except the latter, whose name was withdrawn, all were condemned under this bill; seven, including Bocking, Masters, Rich, Risby, and Elizabeth herself, being sentenced to death, while Fisher and five others were condemned to imprisonment and forfeiture of goods.
More to read:
# John McKee: Dame Elizabeth Barton OSB, the Holy Maid of Kent: London: Burns, Oates and Washbourne, 1925.
# Alan Neame: The Holy Maid of Kent: The Life of Elizabeth Barton: 1506–1534: London: Hodder and Stoughton: 1971: ISBN 0-340-02574-3
# Ethan H. Shagan, Popular Politics in the English Reformation, Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003: chapter 2, "The Anatomy of opposition in early Reformation England: the case of Elizabeth Barton, the holy maid of Kent," p. 61–88.
# Diane Watt, 'Secretaries of God', Cambridge UK: D S Brewer, 1997.
