ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



soil was the scene of the following deaths for religion from the reign of 

 Henry VIII. to that of Elizabeth. Lollardism furnished the first victim, 

 and the story is curious because it is not recorded in the Acts and Monu- 

 ments. On 19 February, 151 3,* the bishop's chancellor had before him 

 certain heretics of Surrey at Kingston-on-Thames. They were Thomas 

 Denys of Maiden in Surrey, Philip Braban, John Langborowe and 

 Margery Jopson of Kingston. The case of Thomas Denys was most 

 serious. Some twenty years before, when living at Waltham Cross, he 

 had been convicted of heresy and had abjured and done penance at 

 Waltham and at Paul's Cross. Not only had he relapsed but he had 

 been exhorting others. He had visited John Jenyns, late detected of 

 heresy, now deceased, and brought him ' a book called Wiclif and bade 

 him copy it; 'which John according to thy false and erroneous mynde and 

 exhortation so did.' Denys' views were of the ordinary kind, denying a 

 Real Presence, objecting to 'thymage' in the church, saying that a priest 

 ought not to assoile one man of a wrong done to another. As a relapsed 

 heretic there was no escape for him, and on 5 March he was handed over 

 to the secular arm and burnt to ashes in the market-place of Kingston. 



Philip Braban and the others submitted. Philip had been servant 

 to Stephen Carder in Middlesex, whose father was burnt for heresy. 

 This was perhaps William Carder of Tenterden, Kent, burnt in 1 5 1 1 

 according to Fox. They had also associated with ' Lowes Joan late of 

 heresy abjured,' who is also mentioned by Fox at Cranbrook. John 

 Jenyns was a ' broderer,' or embroiderer ; Denys, by his name, was 

 perhaps of Walloon extraction, and Philip of the duchy of Brabant a 

 Brabanter. They were not apparently natives of Surrey, but artisans or 

 mechanics at Kingston for trade purposes, with friends in Kent and 

 Middlesex. It is to be remarked that Fox knew of some of these poor 

 people apparently. He mentions a Philip Brabant as inculpated in 

 heresy, though not suffering, a little later. A burning in Kingston 

 market-place was public enough, yet it is not in the Book of Martyrs. 

 Was the bishop a kinsman to the martyrologist ? The latter is not given 

 to the omission of telling cases. He is equally silent about the sub- 

 mission extracted from some Hampshire men and women by the bishop 

 in Farnham Church. One of these confessed in so many words to being 

 a Lollard ; all were Sacramentarian heretics ; one denied purgatory, or 

 any place for departed souls but heaven or hell. 



After this year there is a gap in executions for religion in Surrey till 

 after the breach with Rome. 



On 8 July, 1539, John Griffith, vicar of Wandsworth, was hanged 

 at St. Thomas' Waterings for denying the royal supremacy. With him 

 suffered his servant and a Franciscan named Waire.^ Stow calls him his 

 chaplain. On 3 May, 1540, the severe impartiality of the government 

 burned three Anabaptists as heretics on the highway beyond Southwark 



* The whole story is circumstantially set forth in Fox's Register, iii. 69-7 1 . It continues to iS 

 with those who submitted. 



' Stow, Chron. 4, to p. 972. 



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