Foxe - The Book of Martyrs

Foxe’s Book of Martyrs
was committed to a dark dungeon, and lay deprived of the consolation of any one (for all were
afraid to relieve or communicate with him) until the day appointed came that he should suffer.
The sheriffs of the city, Amry and Couper, with their officers, went to the north gate, and took
out Mr. George Marsh, who walked all the way with the Book in his hand, looking upon the
same, whence the people said, "This man does not go to his death as a thief, nor as one that
deserveth to die."
When he came to the place of execution without the city, near Spittal=Boughton, Mr.
Cawdry, deputy chamberlain of Chester, showed Mr. Marsh a writing under a great seal,
saying that it was a pardon for him if he would recant. He answered that he would gladly
accept the same did it not tend to pluck him from God.
After that, he began to speak to the people showing the cause of his death, and would
have exhorted them to stick unto Christ, but one of the sheriffs prevented him. Kneeling down,
he then said his prayers, put off his clothes unto his shirt, and was chained to the post, having
a number of fagots under him, and a thing made like a firkin, with pitch and tar in it, over his
head. The fire being unskilfully made, and the wind driving it in eddies, he suffered great
extremity, which notwithstanding he bore with Christian fortitude.
When he had been a long time tormented in the fire without moving, having his flesh so
broiled and puffed up that they who stood before him could not see the chain wherewith he
was fastened, and therefore supposed that he had been dead, suddenly he spread abroad his
arms, saying, "Father of heaven have mercy upon me!" and so yielded his spirit into the hands
of the Lord. Upon this, many of the people said he was a martyr, and died gloriously patient.
This caused the bishop shortly after to make a sermon in the cathedral church, and therein he
affirmed, that the said 'Marsh was a heretic, burnt as such, and is a firebrand in hell.' Mr.
Marsh suffered April 24, 1555.
William Flower
William Flower, otherwise Branch, was born at Snow-hill, in the county of Cambridge,
where he went to school some years, and then came to the abby of Ely. After he had remained
a while he became a professed monk, was made a priest in the same house, and there
celebrated and sang Mass. After that, by reason of a visitation, and certain injunctions by the
authority of Henry VIII he took upon him the habit of a secular priest, and returned to Snowhill,
where he was born, and taught children about half a year.
He then went to Ludgate, in Suffolk, and served as a secular priest about a quarter of a
year; from thence to Stoniland; at length to Tewksbury, where he married a wife, with whom
he ever after faithfully and honestly continued. After marriage he resided at Tewksbury about
two years, and thence went to Brosley, where he practiced physic and surgery; but departing
from those parts he came to London, and finally settled at Lambeth, where he and his wife
dwelt together. However, he was generally abroad, excepting once or twice in a month, to
visit and see his wife. Being at home upon Easter Sunday morning, he came over the water
from lambeth into St. Margaret's Church at Westminster; when seeing a priest, named John
Celtham, administering and giving the Sacrament of the alter to the people, and being greatly
offended in his conscience with the priest for the same, he struck and wounded him upon the
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