N20568:5792
The new and complete book of martyrs; or, An universal history of martyrdom: being…
The new and complete book of martyrs; or, An universal history of martyrdom: being Fox's Book of martyrs, revised and corrected, with additions and great improvements. : Containing an authentic account of the lives, persecutions and sufferings of the holy martyrs; and the many dreadful persecutions against the Church of Christ in all parts of the world, by pagans, Jews, Turks, papists, and others, from earliest ages of the church to the present period. ... The whole forming at once a general Christian martyrology, and a complete history of persecutions. / By the Rev. Mr. John Fox, M.A. late of Magdalen College, Oxford. ; Now revised, corrected and improved, with many additional articles, relating to the acts and monuments of the church. By Paul Wright, D.D. ; Embellished with forty elegant copper plate engravings. ; In two volumes. Vol. I[-II].The new and complete book of martyrs; or, An universal history of martyrdom: being Fox's Book of marytrs, revised and corrected, with additions and great improvements. : Containing an authentic account of the lives, persecutions and sufferings of the holy martyrs; and the many dreadful persecutions against the Church of Christ in all parts of the world, by pagans, Jews, Turks, papists, and others, from earliest ages of the church to the present period. ... The whole forming at once a general Christian martyrology, and a complete history of persecutions. / By the Rev. Mr. John Fox, M.A. late of Magdalen College, Oxford. ; Now revised, corrected and improved, with many additional articles, relating to the acts and monuments of the church. By Paul Wright, D.D. ; Embellished with forty elegant copper plate engravings. ; In two volumes. Vol. I[-II].
New-York: printed by William Durell, 1794
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
WILLIAM FLOWER, otherwise named Branch, was born at Snow-hill, in the county of Cambridge, where he went to school some years, and then came to the abbey of Ely; where, after he had remained a while, he was a professed monk, using and bearing the habit of a monk, and observing the rules and orders of the same house, until he came to twenty-one years of age, or thereabouts; and before he came to that age, being a professed monk, he was made a priest also in the same house, and there did celebrate and sing mass. After that, by reason of a visitation, and certain injunctions by the authority of Henry the eighth, he forsook the same house, and casting from him the monk's habit and religion, took upon him and used the habit of a secular priest, and returned to Snow-hill, where he was born; and there he did celebrate and sing mass, and taught children about half a year.
HE then went to Ludgate, in Suffolk, and there served as a secular priest about a quarter of a year; ⟨p. 557⟩from thence to Stoniland, where he tarried, and served as a secular priest also, until the coming out of the six articles: and then he departed from thence, and went into Gloucestershire, where after he had made his abode in that country a while, at length in Tewksbury, according to God's holy ordinance, he married a wife, with whom he ever after faithfully and honestly continued: and after his marriage, he tarried in Tewksbury about two years together, and from thence he went to Brosley, where he tarried three quarters of a year, and practised physic and chirurgery. From thence he removed into Northamptonshire, where under a gentleman he taught children to write and read. But departing from those parts he came to London, and there remained for a certain space. After that, being desirous to see his country, he returned to Snow-hill, where he was born; from thence to Brankstrey in Essex, then to Coxall, where he taught children, and coming to Lambeth near London, he hired a house, where he and his wife did dwell together: however for the most part he was always abroad, except once or twice in a month, to visit and see his wife; where he being at home upon Easter-Sunday, about ten or eleven o'clock in the forenoon of the same day, came over the water from Lambeth into St. Margaret's church at Westminster; when seeing a priest, named John Cheltam, administering and giving the sacrament of the altar to the people, and therewith being greatly offended in his conscience with the priest for the same, did strike and wound him upon the head, and also upon the arm and hand with his wood knife, the priest having the same time in his hand a chalice, with certain consecrated hosts therein, which were sprinkled with the blood of the said priest.