Foxe - The Book of Martyrs

Foxe’s Book of Martyrs
thus was led to the orchard.
One day, when in the stocks, Bonner asked him how he liked his lodging and fare. "Well
enough," said Willes, "might I have a little straw to sit or lie upon." Just at this time came in
Willes' wife, then largely pregnant, and entreated the bishop for her husband, boldly declaring
that she would be delivered in the house, if he were not suffered to go with her. To get rid of
the good wife's importunity, and the trouble of a lying-in woman in his palace, he bade Willes
make the sign of the cross, and say, In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, Amen. Willes
omitted the sign, and repeated the words, "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of
the Holy Ghost, Amen." Bonner would have the words repeated in Latin, to which Willes
made no objection, knowing the meaning of the words. He was then permitted to go home
with his wife, his kinsman Robert Rouze being charged to bring him to St. Paul's the next day,
whither he himself went, and subscribing to a Latin instrument of little importance, was
liberated. This is the last of the twenty-two taken at Islington.
Rev. Richard Yeoman
This devout aged person was curate to Dr. Taylor, at Hadley, and eminently qualified for
his sacred function. Dr. Taylor left him the curacy at his departure, but no sooner had Mr.
Newall gotten the benefice, than he removed Mr. Yeoman, and substituted a Romish priest.
After this he wandered from place to place, exhorting all men to stand faithfully to God's
Word, earnestly to give themselves unto prayer, with patience to bear the cross now laid upon
them for their trial, with boldness to confess the truth before their adversaries, and with an
undoubted hope to wait for the crown and reward of eternal felicity. But when he perceived
his adversaries lay wait for him, he went into Kent, and with a little packet of laces, pins,
points, etc., he travelled from village to village, selling such things, and in this manner
subsisted himself, his wife, and children.
At last Justice Moile, of Kent, took Mr. Yeoman, and set him in the stocks a day and a
night; but, having no evident matter to charge him with, he let him go again. Coming secretly
again to Hadley, he tarried with his poor wife, who kept him privately, in a chamber of the
town house, commonly called the Guildhall, more than a year. During this time the good old
father abode in a chamber locked up all the day, spending his time in devout prayer, in reading
the Scriptures, and in carding the wool which his wife spun. His wife also begged bread for
herself and her children, by which precarious means they supported themselves. Thus the
saints of God sustained hunger and misery, while the prophets of Baal lived in festivity, and
were costily pampered at Jezebel's table.
Information being at length given to Newall, that Yeoman was secreted by his wife, he
came, attended by the constables, and broke into the room where the object of his search lay
in bed with his wife. He reproached the poor woman with being a whore, and would have
indecently pulled the clothes off, but Yeoman resisted both this act of violence and the attack
upon his wife's character, adding that he defied the pope and popery. He was then taken out,
and set in stocks until day.
In the cage also with him was an old man, named John Dale, who had sat there three or
four days, for exhorting the people during the time service was performing by Newall and his
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