Elizabeth Barton

Sr. Elizabeth Barton (known as the Nun of Kent, the Holy Maid of London, the Holy Maid of Kent and later the Mad Maid of Kent; 1506? – 20 April 1534) was an English Catholic nun. She was executed as a result of her prophecies against the marriage of King Henry VIII of England to Anne Boleyn, which the Pope tried to stop.

Life

Little is known of Barton's early life. She appears to have come from a poor background: she was working as a servant when her visions began in 1525. During that year, she suffered from a severe unknown illness and claimed to have received divine revelations. These either predicted future events (such as the death of a child living in her household) or, more frequently, took the form of pleas for people to remain in the Roman Catholic Church. She also urged people to pray to the Blessed Virgin Mary and to undertake pilgrimages.

Shortly after Barton began receiving visions, she became a nun. She rapidly became extremely popular among all classes: both the masses and members of the élite. She held a private meeting in 1528 with Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, the most powerful man in England after the King Henry VIII, and shortly thereafter met twice with the king himself. Barton was accepted by Henry because her prophecies did not then challenge the existing order and also explicitly upheld it as God's will. The prophecies warned against heresy when Henry was trying to exterminate Lutheranism, condemned rebellion when Henry had so many enemies and was paranoid of being overthrown and killed, and urged people to be very devout when Henry was the same way.

Unfortunately for Barton, Henry turned against her when he wanted to obtain an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon and sought to seize control of the Church of England from Rome. Barton strongly opposed the English Reformation and, around 1532, began prophesying that if Henry remarried, he would die shortly thereafter. She said that that she had also seen the exact place in Hell he would go. (In fact, he lived for another 15 years.) Remarkably, Barton went unpunished for nearly a year, largely, it appears, because she was more popular than the King among both very rich and very poor. Since she had only talked and not done anything treasonous, Henry had to pass an attainder, an Act of Parliament that could, without trial, punish actions done when they were legal. Henry's agents spread rumours that she was engaged in sexual relationships with priests and that she suffered from mental illness.

Her reputation thus undermined, the Crown was then able to arrest Barton in 1533 and forced her to confess she had fabricated her revelations. However, all that is known regarding her confession emanates from Thomas Cromwell or his agents, and all available documents are on the Crown's side. Furthermore, she and her companions were condemned without a hearing. She, along with seven of her chief supporters, was executed for treason and hanged at the Tyburn gallows. The next day she was buried at Greyfriars Church in Newgate Street.

Legacy

Churches such as the Church of St. Augustine of Canterbury and the Nephite Church of Christ continue to venerate Sister Barton.

See also

• Thomas More

Links

• Watt, Diane, "Barton, Elizabeth (c. 1506–1534)", Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford, doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/1598 .

Bibliography

• McKee, John (1925), Dame Elizabeth Barton OSB, the Holy Maid of Kent, London: Burns, Oates and Washbourne .
• Neame, Alan (1971), The Holy Maid of Kent: The Life of Elizabeth Barton: 1506–1534, London: Hodder and Stoughton, ISBN 0-340-02574-3 .
• Shagan, Ethan H (2003), "2", Popular Politics in the English Reformation, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 61–88 .
• Watt, Diane (1997), Secretaries of God, Cambridge, UK: DS Brewer .

Elizabeth Barton in literature

The case of Elizabeth Barton is dealt with extensively in the novel Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel.