Foxe - The Book of Martyrs

Foxe’s Book of Martyrs
As this godly martyr was going to the fire, there came a certain maid to him, which took
him about the neck, and kissed him, who, being marked by them that were present, was sought
for the next day after, to be had to prison and burned, as the very party herself informed me:
howbeit, as God of His goodness would have it, she escaped their fiery hands, keeping herself
secret in the town a good while after.
But as this maid, called Rose Nottingham, was marvellously preserved by the providence
of God, so there were other two honest women who did fall into the rage and fury of that time.
The one was a brewer's wife, the other was a shoemaker's wife, but both together now
espoused to a new husband, Christ.
With these two was this maid aforesaid very familiar and well acquainted, who, on a time
giving counsel to the one of them, that she should convey herself away while she had time
and space, had this answer at her hand again: "I know well," saith she, "that it is lawful enough
to fly away; which remedy you may use, if you list. But my case standeth otherwise. I am tied
to a husband, and have besides young children at home; therefore I am minded, for the love
of Christ and His truth, to stand to the extremity of the matter."
And so the next day after Samuel suffered, these two godly wives, the one called Anne
Potten, the other called Joan Trunchfield, the wife of Michael Trunchfield, shoemaker, of
Ipswich, were apprehended, and had both into one prison together. As they were both by sex
and nature somewhat tender, so were they at first less able to endure the straitness of the
prison; and especially the brewer's wife was cast into marvellous great agonies and troubles
of mind thereby. But Christ, beholding the weak infirmity of His servant, did not fail to help
her when she was in this necessity; so at the length they both suffered after Samuel, in 1556,
February 19. And these, no dobut, were those two ladders, which, being joined with the third,
Samuel saw stretched up into heaven. This blessed Samuel, the servant of Christ, suffered the
thirty-first of August, 1555.
The report goeth among some that were there present, and saw him burn, that his body in
burning did shine in the eyes of them that stood by, as bright and white as new-tried silver.
When Agnes Bongeor saw herself separated from her prison-fellows, what piteous moan
that good woman made, how bitterly she wept, what strange thoughts came into her mind,
how naked and desolate she esteemed herself, and into what plunge of despair and care her
poor soul was brought, it was piteous and wonderful to see; which all came because she went
not with them to give her life in the defence of her Christ; for of all things in the world, life
was least looked for at her hands.
For that morning in which she was kept back from burning, had she put on a smock, that
she had prepared only for that purpose. And also having a child, a little young infant sucking
on her, whom she kept with her tenderly all the time that she was in prison, against that day
likewise did she send away to another nurse, and prepared herself presently to give herself for
the testimony of the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ. So little did she look for life, and so
greatly did God's gifts work in her above nature, that death seemed a great deal better welcome
than life. After which, she began a little to stay herself, and gave her whole exercise to reading
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