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Most Igbo are Roman-Catholic. In the areas of South-Eastern Nigeria known as Igboland Protestants are a marked minority. In the villages, the local parish is the third part of a triad with the home and market in functioning as a locus of activity. It is the church, of course, but also next to the local nursery and primary school, the football pitch and sometimes even the primary health care. I was determined to be a boy at a Holy Cross, confirmed as a Catholic at St Johns, had my mumps treated at the Annunciation hospital and my first Secondary School was called Sacred Heart, all this in one state. This movement through uniquely Catholic institutions across various stages of ones life was certainly not unique to me.Catholicism due to the Portuguese was the earliest variant of Christianity to make its way to the Guinea zone. There were missions established by the Capuchin brothers in Benin by 1647 and Warri by 1650. The general decline in the power of the Iberian States and the rise of racism dealt the movement a double blow. Missionaries were not sponsored for long stretches, isolation led to temptation and many Priests succumbed, taking concubines at best, becoming slave trading warlords on the other extreme. Old converts died, their beliefs morphed into localised tradition and when new Priests returned, they often kept themselves apart from the locals, as an appendage of the colonial superstructure, they sought only to minister to the colonialists.While the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith and Pope Innocent XI had condemned slavery in the closing stages of the 17th century mostly due to the appeals of a former slave Lourenço da Silva, it took a combination of the English anti-slavery movement and the advent of industrial capitalism for change to happen. The anti-slavery movement and a renewal of the missionary spirit went hand-in-glove.A key component of this renewed missionary movement was the focus on the utility of local languages, an idea traced to an English clergyman, Thomas Thompson. Most indigenous African languages are Latinised for the simple reason that most of their roots lie in the language dictionaries of the early missionaries.Second in influence to the missionaries in propagating Christianity were the slave repatriates. In this endeavour, Sierra Leone was to be the beachhead. One of the many African returnees to Sierra Leone was a certain Harry Washington but more important to this story was a boy freed by British anti-slavery squadron and sent first to Sierra Leone from where he made his way back home, Samuel Ajayi Crowther.The bible in his hand is likely in Yoruba. He translated the Bible to the language, standardising it in the process.When Samuel Ajayi Crowther was made the bishop of the West Niger province in 1864, he became the first black Bishop since Henrique of Utica in 1521. Christianity was back in the Guinea, but it was rather different. Henrique was the son of King Affonso of Kongo, granted his bishopric by Leo X, a Medici. Bishop Crowther, on the other hand, was the son of peasants.In the time between Henrique and Crowther, the Bastille had fallen and the “self-evident” principles which the repatriates brought back with them from the USA were a key part of the new evangelism. In the past, missionaries had focused on converting Kings, an uneasy proposition for people whose power were so tied up in the slave trade, that also explains the easy erasure of the hold of past missions. This time the evangelists would remember again that they were to be fishers of men—the outcasts and the downtrodden were to be the first line of appeal. The Catholic missionary to pioneer this approach for Catholics was a Jewish convert from Alsace, Francois Libermann, the [second] founder of the Holy Ghost Fathers.This world was gone by the return of the missionariesBishop Crowther had made his name as one of the members of the successful Niger expedition of 1841 that led to the establishment of the first Christian missions in Igboland. But it took the Baikie expedition to prove that the Niger could both be navigated successfully and without casualties. Britain in Igbo translates as Baikie’s land which ought to please the Scot.The Red Coats followed.At this point, the vast majority of the people were still pagan but the long British conquest of Igboland flipped the social position of what were previously ostracised Christians. As British flying columns roamed the land, soldiers did as soldiers do, except with the Christians. A simple matter of sharing a language and Christians knowing the channels through which to report misdemeanor as well as the District Officers recognising that the Christians would be a key source of support. From the outside looking in, however, the usefulness of Christianity received a boost. The mission house became not just a badge of honour but a symbol of security.Invitations to Christian missions went out, but ah, which ones?From the outside looking in a Christian is a Christian correct? But it was not so and hadn’t been since after the twelve apostles. The villages looking to convert didn’t have the time for the fine theological arguments, they were utilitarian and sought the missions to provide them with the greatest value. The flexibility imbued in the Spiritans by Francois, the leadership of Father Joseph Shanahan and the influence of the method of British conquest all combined to give Catholics the advantage.The British did not conquer Western Nigeria, it became a protectorate. There is a fine line to be drawn here. The British conquered Lagos and made it into a colony. Hence the people of Lagos were in effect British citizens, possessing the rights those entailed. The territories gained by treaty were ruled by its traditional institutions with advice from the British Resident. Conquered territory was conquered territory, the rule determined by its conqueror. In Northern Nigeria, also conquered territory, the people retreated into sullen non-cooperation. In Igboland, they became bourgeois.This is important in order to "detrivialise" the point on which the issue turned. Due to the fact that the Protestant missions had initially been in the lead, they were simply unused to a people who made their acceptance of a mission contingent on the teaching of the English language. Missionary policy before then was that the natives be taught in their local languages. The locals did not much mind that. This was understandable, the West was populated with Saros[Sierra Leoneans] seeking to “reconnect”, its traditional authorities as in the North were respected—Although the North was conquered too, because of India, the British were always conscious of offending the “Musulman”.To the Igbo though, whether as a court messenger or a Catechist or a clerk, clearly the new route to progress in this new world lay in the English language. It was either have one of your own whispering in the ears of the District Officer, writing letters to the court or some Sierra Leonean with an axe to grind. The Protestants were unwilling to teach in English, the Catholics did and not just English either, unlike the Protestants with an aversion to “secular” subjects like English, Maths and the technicals which the government wanted to form the education policy, the Catholics taught those. That led to Government subsidies and increased expansion. So the first generation of children taught to rise promptly for the Angelus at 12 and 6 were welcomed into the fold in their hundreds then thousands. By 1911 average school attendance at the Roman Catholic schools was 5421. It was just 156 in 1900.It is in its own way a rule of history that ties which were born in frivolity are bound solid by the fires of war. In this case, it was the civil war that did it. When it started, with the eyes of the world mainly on Israel’s six-day stomp and in the opening stages of Vietnam. It was the Catholic Church that went above and beyond to lead a relief column. After the war two things became staple in Igboland: The Church and Stockfish—easily preserved, portable source of protein and salt. You don’t stop to think how important those two are until you really need to.The military did not forget the Church’s role and as punishment expropriated all Church-owned schools. Resolving that and getting our very own Saint were the focus of campaigns in the post-war era.Blessed Cyprian Michael Iwene TansiThe start of the 21st century was not an auspicious time in Nigeria. Military rule had been rapacious. In the midst of economic and social decline, the Protestant fightback started. They advanced the concept of the “generational curse”. Lots of commentaries have been written on Nigerian prosperity gospel, but it ain’t Joel Osteen. In between sermons on the gifts of God to the tithing faithful, hearty calls are made for enemies to die! Chains are shattered! Familial curses are shrivelled! For, “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been subject to violence, and the violent lay claim to it”.So the strength of your appeal becomes measured by the violence of your request. And it seemed to work, there were testimonies of miraculous new jobs, cripples were tossing their wheelchairs aside, the blind seeing and instead of the jazzy sort of intonation that was a staple of mass, there was the equivalent of a heavy metal rock-out just before the casting and binding. Compared to Priests castigating you for mixing up your Nicene with the Apostle’s, well…Unlike in the rest of the world where the exodus was from Catholicism to nothing, among the Igbo, it was mainly from Catholicism to Protestantism, although the Protestants are still in a minority, that is where we find ourselves today.

In 1453 the last Emperor, Constantine XI, ruled over no more than the city, a few islands and coastal districts and the Peloponnese. Commerce had passed into the hands of Venetians and Genoese. The classical statues had been sold or stolen. The lead on the roof of the imperial palace had been used to mint coins.‘’ From the roof of Aya Sofya, surveying the ruined palace, the Sultan thought of other fallen empires, and emperors, and uttered the following lines:The spider serves as gatekeeper in the halls of Chosroes.The owl calls the watches in the palace of Afrasyab.’’Source of the quoted paragraphs: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/constantinople.htm‘’ If history and geography made Constantinople an incomparable imperial capital, the Ottomans considered themselves destined to rule a great empire. While still nomads in central Asia, many Turks had regarded themselves as `a chosen people of God'. Demons in war and angels in peace, equally heroic and humane, they were destined to rule the world. ‘’Source ofthe quoted paragraphs: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wpsrv/style/longterm/books/chap1/constantinople.htmConstantinople had stood sieges many times before by Turks, Arabs , Avars etc … Latins had managed to conquer the city by mainly means of politics and pillaged it in 1204. The shock was not about the fall of Constantinople. Even during Ottoman Interregnum (Ottoman civil war) , Turks headed by Musa had laid an effective siege. Manuel II had made a deal with his rival Mehmed Çelebi and saved the city. Before that siege, Timurid threat had saved Constantinople from hands of Bayezid I in 1402.Sultan Mehmed II ‘s ( conqueror of Istanbul) father also had a siege of Constantinople in 1422. It was on the agenda of Turkish expansion policy for long time. A national and religious goal to speak of… It was not something new…There was nothing to shock in case of Constantinople …I think the real shock came once Mehmed II continued on his policy to be a first Muslim Emperor of whole Romans including Western lands… The Pope made the mistake of uniting the churches of Catholics and Orthodox religions before the fall of Constantinople.. By doing that, he put all the eggs in same basket. Once Mehmed II had the Constantinople, he held one of the handles of the trophy. The other one was in Rome and waiting for him.Ottomon Sultan Mehmed II became Mehmed the Conqueror after taking the 1,000-year-old fortress capital of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople, in May 1453. Source of the picture: From Conquering Constantinople To Fighting Dracula, This Muslim Sultan Bent Eastern Europe To His WillPope’s strategy of uniting the churches and failure of it , was the real reason of the shock. This time Rome itself was in danger.‘’ Nicholas V saw the precarious situation as an opportunity to push for the reunification of the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, a priority of the papacy since 1054. Orthodox leaders voted in favour of union, but the people of Constantinople were adamantly against it and rioted in response. Military support came from Venice and Genoa.’’ fall of Constantinople | Facts, Summary, & Significance‘’ Pius’s letter to Mehmed II, which he wrote in 1461, is a long and controversial work, whose ostensible goal is to offer the sultan papal support and political legitimacy in exchange for his baptism. Separated by Baca into 19 sections or books, the first three books offer tactical reasons why conversion to Christianity would increase Mehmed’s political power’’… Source of the quoted paragraphs: Seeking the Peace of the CityOttoman Sieges were common and not surprising‘’ Sultan Murad II laid siege to Constantinople in 1422, but he was forced to lift it in order to suppress a rebellion elsewhere in the empire. In 1444 he lost an important battle to a Christian alliance in the Balkans and abdicated the throne to his son, Mehmed II. However, he returned to power two years later after defeating the Christians and remained sultan until his death in 1451.’’ Source of the quoted paragraphs: fall of Constantinople | Facts, Summary, & Significance‘’’ By the mid-15th century, constant struggles for dominance with its Balkan neighbours and Roman Catholic rivals had diminished Byzantine imperial holdings to Constantinople and the land immediately west of it. Furthermore, with Constantinople having suffered through several devastating sieges, the city’s population had dropped from roughly 400,000 in the 12th century to between 40,000 and 50,000 by the 1450s. Vast open fields constituted much of the land within the walls. Byzantine relations with the rest of Europe had soured over the last several centuries as well: the Schism of 1054 and the 13th-century Latin occupation of Constantinople entrenched a mutual hatred between the Orthodox Byzantines and Roman Catholic Europe. Nevertheless, just as deeply entrenched was the understanding that Byzantine control of Constantinople was a necessary bastion against Muslim control of land and sea in the eastern Mediterranean.’’ Source of the quoted paragraphs: fall of Constantinople | Facts, Summary, & SignificanceA surviving section of the famous Theodosian Walls of Constantinople. At its highest, the 4-mile-long inner wall stood nearly 40 feet tall. Source of the picture: From Conquering Constantinople To Fighting Dracula, This Muslim Sultan Bent Eastern Europe To His WillSultan Mehmed II’s policy of uniting both Roman Empires ( East and West)I shall be telling this with a sighSomewhere ages and ages hence:Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less travelled by,And that has made all the difference.'The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost (1916)‘’ The Ottomans were also inspired by a desire to equal the glory of Alexander the Great. Mehmed II identified himself so strongly with Alexander that he commissioned a biography of himself in Greek, from a minor Greek official, Michael Kritovoulos, on the same paper and in the same format as the copy of Arrian's life of Alexander in his library, which was read to him `daily'. A Venetian envoy wrote that Mehmed II `declares that he will advance from East to West, as in former times the Westerners advanced into the Orient. There must, he says, be only one Empire, one faith and one sovereignty in the world. No place was more deserving than Constantinople for the creation of this unity in the world.'’ Source of the quoted paragraphs: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/constantinople.htm‘’ The fall of Constantinople in 1453 might mark the end of the Roman Empire, but the imperial ambitions of Sultan Mehmed II, its young Ottoman conqueror, were just beginning. Over the following eight years the last fragments of Byzantium were methodically swept up around the Aegean and Black Sea coast, culminating in the surrender of Trebizond in the summer of 1461. At that moment, Mehmed – who had begun styling himself Cesar of the Roman Empire (Qayser-i Rum) – had a choice to make: with Anatolia and mainland Greece conquered, where would his formidable armies focus their attention during the campaign season of 1462? Hindsight tells us the answer, but I would like to look at the potential road not taken – and why.Sultan Mehmed II was the quintessential Renaissance man. Quite aside from his military prowess, he wrote poetry, appreciated and sponsored European painters and spoke at least seven languages. Despite impeccable ghazi credentials as conqueror of Constantinople – 'the red apple' so long desired by warriors of Islam – he showed such an interest in the fundamental doctrines of Christianity that the Patriarch wrote a homily, The Confession of Faith, specifically for him and the Latin Pope began to entertain hopes of a miraculous conversion. This was wishful thinking; far from dreaming of pilgrimage to the Vatican, Mehmed once declared that St Peter's would make a fine cavalry stable.It was no idle threat. Italy must have seemed the obvious target for a Turkish invasion in that first summer following Byzantium's elimination. Having conquered the eastern capital, the old western empire surely enticed a man with the deep interest in history that Mehmed repeatedly displayed. There is no doubt that many on the Italian peninsula feared such a conquest. As early as 1459, Pope Pius II had convened a counsel at Mantua to call for a crusade, but when they arrived, the princes of Europe were keener to discuss the competing Angevin and Aragonese claims on the Kingdom of Naples. Later that year war broke out in southern Italy between those two factions and sucked in armies from France, Milan and Genoa together with many famous mercenary companies. From 1459 to 1465, the southern half of Italy was in total chaos.Exploiting division to make strategic territorial gains had always been the modus operandi of Ottoman conquest. The Byzantine civil war of 1352-1357 allowed the first Ottoman Sultan, Orhan, to snatch Gallipoli and establish an initial Turkish toehold on the European side of the Hellespont. With an almost equally short gulf now lying between Ottoman-held Greece and the heel of Italy, might Mehmed have seen an opportunity to repeat that history and begin his march up the peninsula towards Rome? There are several pieces of evidence to suggest this was being given serious consideration.In his memoirs, Florentine merchant-spy Benedetto Dei recounts that while he was in Constantinople in 1460, he was summoned to an audience with the Sultan who proceeded to grill him on the political situation in Italy. In Dei's mind, it was clear that the Grand Turk was considering Italy as a target and so he says he sought to deter it by his answers, to which Mehmed replied:'My Florentine, I have heard all you have said...and I believe it fully...but I answer you and say that Italy could no longer perform the great deeds it performed in the past, because in those days when it did wonders, the reason was the power of the Romans, who were then sole masters of Italy...but today you are twenty states and groups of powers in your country, and you are in disagreement among yourselves and bitter enemies...and I know many things which will all be of help to me in the plan I have made; and seeing that I am young and rich and favoured by fortune, I intend to surpass Caesar and Alexander and Xerxes by far.'’ Source of the quoted paragraphs: The Road Not Taken: The Ottoman Invasion of Italy‘’No invasion of Italy arrived in 1462 but Ottoman landings did take place almost two decades later in July 1480. By then the war for Naples had long since ended and the invaders faced a much tougher task against a secure King Ferrante. But if the conversations with Dei, the coastal map and the convenient chaos of Neapolitan civil war made 1462 the most opportune moment to launch the invasion, what caused the crucially long delay?The answer might lie on the misty banks of the Danube in the winter of 1461 and an unlikely Italian saviour in the form of Vlad Dracula. ‘’ Source of the quoted paragraphs: The Road Not Taken: The Ottoman Invasion of Italy

Barton was probably born around 1506 in the village of Aldington. She was from a lowly background, and as with most of the girls of her class, she became a servant. We don't know if she had a religious vocation from a young age, but it wouldn't have mattered if she did. Convents required dowries to enter - just like a marriage - unless the convent was extremely wealthy and decided to waive the requirement. Barton's family likely couldn't come up with the funds. Working-class girls like Barton would work as a domestic servant to save up their own dowries.Barton entered service at the home of Thomas Cobb, who was a steward at one of the estates of Archbishop Warham. While there, Barton fell ill, lying in a rigid, catatonic state - by some reports, upwards of seven months, though that is almost certainly an exaggeration. She may have been epileptic, given the description of the "terrible faces" she made when she was attacked by one of her fits.Cromwell wrote about it in a letter to a cleric:[H]er face was wonderfully disfigured, her tongue hanging out, and her eyes being in a manner plucked out, and laid upon her cheeks, and so greatly disordered.When Barton began to speak again, she uttered prophecies. At one point, she accurately predicted the death of one of Cobb's children, who was also lying ill. Word of this strange and seemingly miraculous event spread through the neighborhood.Her visions continued, and she described things occurring in far-off places, and of souls in the afterlife. What awed her contemporaries was that her lips were not seen to move, and the voice seemed to issue from deep within her belly, as though from within a barrel. When she spoke of heaven, her voice was sweet and melodic, and when she spoke of hell, it was "terrible" and frightening to the listeners. To modern ears, this sounds like simple ventriloquism, but to those of the Tudor age, it seemed supernatural.According to the sermon preached after her downfall, the attention went to her head:When this said parson [Richard Masters] came home, he shewed her that the said archbishop [Warham] took the matter very well, and said it was notable; and commanded him to be present if she had any more such speeches and to mark those same: affirming that the speeches that she had spoken came of God, and that she should not refuse neither hide the goodness and works of God. And likewise said unto her Thomas Cobb her master. And as soon as she was able to sit up her master caused her to sit at his own mess with her mistress and this Parson of Aldington.And thereupon she, perceiving herself to be much made of, to be magnified and much set by by reason of the said trifling words spoken unadvisedly by idleness of her brain, conceived in her mind how she (having so good success and furtherance of so small occasion, being nothing to be esteemed in deed) might further enterprise and essay what she could do, being in good avisement and remembrance, to illude the people giving audience unto her, who were so ready to make so much of her idle and trifling words aforesaid.She prophesied she would be cured of her illness if she was taken to the nearby chapel of Our Lady of Court-at-Street, and so her growing number of followers carried her there. One report says Barton was accompanied by a crowd of thousands, drawn to hear the miraculous "holy maid." Upon arrival at the chapel, Barton fell into an ecstatic state in front of the icon of the Virgin Mary, and arose cured, as she had predicted.Her visions had pious, Catholic fervor, exhorting people to renounce sin and live a good, Christian life. Barton admonished listeners to eschew the sin and vanities of the world, and embrace the values of the church, and she had the charisma to incite her listeners to religious fervor as well. The parson of her parish, Richard Masters, came to visit and listen to her, and was apparently convinced the girl had been touched by God. Masters began to record her prophecies, filling reams of paper with her words.Small pamphlet-style books containing Barton's pronouncements published, a respectable run of 700 copies. Some of the prophecies/exhortations were either uttered in rhyming couplets, or recorded that way in the book, which Thomas More later lamented was "full rude" and unimpressive. She touched on some somewhat obscure theological matters, which later was pointed to as evidence of coaching by her spiritual adviser, but others saw as evidence the untutored girl had been chosen by God to voice His word.Archbishop Warham formed a commission to look into the matter of this prophesying girl. They questioned Barton about the conventional matters of the faith, and after reading over her pronouncements and prophecies, Warham said he saw no heresy in her. They were in line with Catholic doctrine, and Barton was urging her followers to obey the Church in all things. Warham decided to sponsor her so she could enter the tiny Benedictine convent at St. Sepulcher in Canterbury.The prioress was reluctant. Even if Barton wasn't a heretic, she was a sickly peasant girl with no dower. The convent was very small, with only five nuns and the prioress. They couldn't afford to take on the burden of caring for a girl who might fall comatose again, and the prioress wasn't sure she wanted the notoriety of housing a mystic. But Warham's personal involvement convinced her, and after joining the order, Barton came to be known as the Nun of Kent.This source says that because Barton was a fully ordained choir nun, she must have been literate in Latin, but I think that's unlikely. She may have learned to read and write while in the convent - as evinced by the fact she was able to read her confession aloud - but she probably had little or no prior education to joining the convent. She was put under the tutelage of a spiritual adviser, a monk named Dr. Edward Bocking.As Barton's fame spread, she began to correspond with the learned theologians of the day, including Thomas More, Bishop Fisher, and at one point, she even wrote to the pope, himself. Barton's rise must have indeed, seemed miraculous to her. Only a few years ago, she had been a poor peasant servant, and now she was a mystic with a following of thousands. The shrine she favored was becoming wealthy from the attention she brought it as pilgrims came to leave offerings at the site of the miracle, and to meet with the Holy Maid of Kent.Barton began to produce souvenirs of her mystical travels. She had a veil that had been scorched in the fires of hell, a manuscript in gold supposedly personally written by Mary Magdalene in heaven, and a befouled handkerchief with which she'd wiped her face after Satan spat on her when she spurned his advances. She was also said to have performed miracles:[She] continued her accustomed working of wondrous myracles resorting often (by way of traunce onely) to our Lady of Court of Streete, who also ceassed not to shew herself mighty in operation there, lighting candels without fire, moistning womens breastes that berfore were drie and wanted milke, restoring all sorts of sicke to perfect health, reducing the dead to life againe, and finally dooing al good, to all such as were measured and vowed (as the popish maner was) unto her at Court of Strete.[...]If these companions could have let the King of the land alone, they might have plaied their pageants as freely, as others have beene permitted, howsoever it tendeth to the dishonour of the King of heaven.As Lambard above notes, Barton might have continued indefinitely as a holy mystic had she not turned her attention to the matter of the king's annulment.By 1527, everyone knew Henry wanted to set aside his wife, Katharine of Aragon, and marry Anne Boleyn. Barton was outraged about it and began to predict dire consequences for the king, for the pope - if he agreed to it - and to any other supporters of the annulment.The king ignored Barton for as long as he could, but her popularity was steadily growing, and not just among the peasants. She was also attracting the attentions of the nobility, including the Marchioness of Exeter, and others - some of whom had Yorkist blood in their veins. Barton told Lady Exeter that her husband would inherit the crown - deeply dangerous words. (Though she said on an occasion prior to that Princess Mary would inherit the throne, and would marry another Yorkist, Lord Montague; Barton does not seem to have noticed she contradicted herself in these statements.)Thomas More and Bishop Fisher are both known to have corresponded with her. Bishop Fisher seems to have been more enthusiastic about her; Thomas More was unimpressed.Barton pleaded to meet with Katharine of Aragon or Princess Mary, but both refused an audience, though an ambassador noted they were very interested in her. It may be that Katharine and the princess were concerned about appearing to support Barton's political pronouncements and angering the king. She wrote to both of them, but there's no evidence they ever replied to her letters.In 1528, Warham wrote to Wolsey and said Barton wished to speak with Henry, though he didn't know if what she wanted to say was good or bad. Oddly enough, the king decided to grant her an audience.Barton was either extremely brave or foolhardy. We don't have an eyewitness account (which is a pity!) but she apparently warned him that the Archangel Michael had told her there would be terrible consequences if he separated from his wife, Katharine. She urged Henry to destroy the heretics of the New Learning who were beginning to question papal authority in the wake of Luther's teaching. Henry seems to have dismissed Barton as delusional, and sent her back to Canterbury, but Warham kept him up to date on her pronouncements with regular dispatches.In 1529, Barton had second audience with the king in which her rhetoric had escalated to threatening. She said if he married Anne Boleyn, he would not survive for an hour afterward. Henry tried to convince her of the soundness of his theological argument for the annulment, but Barton was unmovable in her conviction. It's said by some sources that Anne Boleyn's partisans tried to bribe Barton to silence - even going as far as to offer her a place in Anne's court, but Barton refused.Henry's apparent patience in the matter of Elizabeth Barton seems remarkable, especially in light of what happened to others who stood in his way, but what seems to have stayed his hand was that they didn't have anything to charge her with. Henry was oddly particular about obeying the law. If the law got in the way of what he wanted, he changed it so his actions were nicely legal. In this case, they technically had nothing to charge Barton with. Not yet, anyway.Unfortunately for Henry, these two meetings in which Barton had boldly condemned the king to his face and walked away unscathed only increased her esteem in the eyes of her followers. Even Henry was in awe of her, as they saw it.Bishop Fisher interrogated Barton not long after her meeting with the king. She told him about her interview with Henry. Since Barton told him she'd said the same things to his majesty, Fisher didn't bother informing king of the visit, which later turned out to be a terrible mistake.When Wolsey died, Barton claimed he'd managed to get into heaven because he hadn't capitulated to the royal will, and she had intervened on his behalf to save him from damnation. Wolsey's death marked a change in Henry's religious policy. Wolsey's replacement - Archbishop Cranmer - was to prove a facilitator of that royal will, and to take England in the direction Barton abhorred.In November of 1532, Henry sailed for France with Anne Boleyn to meet with King Francis and to essentially obtain his seal of approval on Anne as royal consort. Barton claimed that during the visit, Henry had attended mass with Francis, but since Henry was in such a state of sin, the Virgin Mary had taken the communion host from Henry and given it to the invisibly present Barton to consume instead. The Virgin had shown Barton the spot in hell that Henry would occupy after he "died a villain's death" within a month if he married Anne. She claimed to have used her powers to prevent Henry from marrying Anne in Calais - but somehow missed the wedding that actually did take place as soon as they returned to England.When Henry appeared hale and hearty enough after marrying Anne, Barton said that her prophecy had been fulfilled in that the king had been deposed in the eyes of God. She claimed to have seen a devil whispering in Anne Boleyn's ear as she tried to influence the king's policy.Around this time, Thomas More wrote to Barton and told her to leave off prophesying on political matters. He warned her of what had happened to others who meddled with these matters, reminding her specifically of the Duke of Buckingham, who had been executed in 1521, and it was said he'd been incited to aspirations to the throne by a "holy monke."She didn't take his advice. She had reached a critical point. Warham and Wolsey were dead. Thomas More had resigned as chancellor. Bishop Fisher had fallen from favor. Henry was done with tolerance. Barton was popular. She was loud. And she could no longer be ignored. Barton had to be silenced, and she had to be discredited.In the autumn of 1533, Barton was placed under arrest, along with Dr. Bocking. She was examined by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, and it didn't take long for her to break. He wrote later to Archdeacon Hawkins about the matter:Now about Midsummer last, I, hearing of these matters, sent for this holy maid, to examine her and from me she was had to Master Cromwell, to be further examined there. And now she hath confessed all, and uttered the very truth, which is this: that she never had vision in all her life, but all that ever she said was feigned of her own imagination, only to satisfy the minds of them the which resorted unto her, and to obtain worldly praise: by reason of the which her confession, many and divers, both religious men and other, be now in trouble, forasmuch as they consented to her mischievous and feigned visions, which contained much perilous sedition and also treason, and would not utter it, but rather further the same to their power.Once upon a time, Barton's status as a nun would have protected her, but now Henry was the head of the church. Barton was also a commoner, which made her eligible for torture. None is mentioned in her case, but perhaps it wasn't needed.The charges against Dr. Bocking and Barton are outlined in the Letters and Papers:Edward Bocking, D.D., frequently railed against the King's marriage before the false nun of St. Sepulchre's, whose ghostly father he was. She, to please him, feigned to have a revelation from God that the King would not live a month after his marriage; and when this did not come true, feigned another revelation to the effect that the King was no longer accepted King, by God, after his marriage. They reported this among those whom they knew to be opposed to the King's marriage.[...]The Nun has confessed that the letter purporting to have been written by Mary Magdalene in Heaven, and sent to a widow in London, was written by a monk of St. Augustine's, in Canterbury, named Hawkeherst, who has confessed to the writing thereof and the lymning of the golden words “Jesus Maria" above the letter.Barton was accused of being in a conspiracy with the pope's agents and other persons to put the king "in a murmur and evil opinion of his people," and thus endanger his crown and royal dignity. Her prophecies were deemed to belyes by them unlawfully and traiterously practysed devysed ymagyned and conspired, as well to the blasphemy of Almyghty God.Her voluminous recorded prophecies and admonitions were searched for anything that could be deemed heretical, and anything contrary to Catholic doctrine was pointed out in the sermons that condemned her. It was important to show she was not as perfectly in line with doctrine as she'd been made out to be. She could not be the voice of God if she had errors in her teachings.Bishop Fisher and Thomas More also stood in jeopardy, but More was able to produce the letter in which he urged her to stop speaking on political matters, and Bishop Fisher was let off with a fine ... for a time. Lady Exeter threw herself on the mercy of the king, pleading her gender as a defense:I am but a woman whose fragility and brittleness is such as most facile easily and lightly is seduced and brought into abusion.Chapuys wrote to the emperor about Barton's arrest, and says there were efforts to tie her activities to Katharine:Some days ago the King ordered the arrest and trial of a nun who had hitherto borne both the name and reputation of a good, simple, and sanctified creature, and of having been blessed at times with Divine revelations. The cause of her imprisonment is her having said, written, and affirmed in public, as well as in private, that she had had a revelation to the effect that within a very short period of time not only would this king lose his crown, but would also be expelled from the kingdom and damned, and that she had had a spiritual vision of the particular place and spot destined to him in Hell.Various friars and other worthy people have been committed to prison charged with having stirred up this said nun to deliver that and other prophecies for the express purpose of promoting revolution among the people. And yet it would seem as if at all times God had inspired the Queen to behave in such a manner as to avoid the possibility of the King's suspicions falling on her; for notwithstanding the many and oft-repeated efforts made by the nun to obtain an audience, in order, as she said, to console her in her affliction and adversity, it was always denied her. The Queen, in fact, would never receive her, and now finds that she acted wisely.All this time the King's Privy Councillors are making most diligent search and inquiries as to whether the Queen ever wrote or sent a message to the said nun; but she is perfectly at ease on that score, for she declares that she never had anything to do with her, but only with the marquis and marchioness of Excestre (Exeter), and with the good bishop of Rochestre (Fisher), who, it must be said for the sake of truth, have been on very intimate terms with the said nun.The charges against Barton weren't quite enough. Henry didn't want to create a martyr in the eyes of the people. The king's agents began to spread rumors that Barton had been unchaste. The sermon preached against her at St. Paul's after her arrest said she left her cell at all hours of the night, and she "went not about the saying of her Pater Noster!" She was said to have been brought to Dr. Bocking at night by his servants and returned to the convent in the morning.As Dr. Bocking was accused of coaching her as to what to say in her "revelations," Barton was reduced from a "holy maid" to a woman faking visions to please her lover. Instead of a holy mystic, she was merely the tool of traitorous men, or perhaps those who wanted to enrich themselves and the little shrine by making it a site of pilgrimage.In the end, there was no trial. Henry was uncertain he had enough to legally condemn Barton and her followers of treason, since the laws were not yet in place which he would use to condemn later "traitors" who merely spoke against him. Barton and her followers were condemned by Act of Attainder.They hunted down every copy of Barton's books of prophecy, and did the job so effectively that not a single copy survives to the the present day.John Capon, a protegee of Anne Boleyn - who hoped for an appointment as a bishop - preached the sermon which denounced Barton at St. Paul's. Barton stood on a platform before the crowd as the sermon was delivered condemning her as a fraud. The sermon debunked the "souvenirs" of her mystical travels, such as the veil she'd said were scorched in the fires of hell as being burned by Barton herself. She'd had a local monk create the gold-embellished manuscript, and had simply rubbed the handkerchief on some smelly thing to make it stink. "You know wot I mean," the sermon reads after that last line, presumably with a waggle of the eyebrows for comedic effect. The sermon stated Barton had gotten fat off the offerings of her followers while ordering them to fast to starvation for their sins.When the hour-long sermon ended, Barton and her followers read a confession admitting what had been said was all true and begging for forgiveness from the king. They were taken to the Tower to await their fate.Barton would not have been housed in the luxurious apartments where Anne Boleyn was later imprisoned, nor even in the stark confines of the Bell Tower where Bishop Fisher later languished. Barton would have been thrown into one of the miserable dungeon cells, chained to the wall in a dank, dark stone chamber, perhaps with a thin handful of straw scattered on the floor and a bucket for her waste.On March 24, the Bill of Attainder passed Parliament, and three weeks later, Elizabeth Barton, Dr. Bocking, Richard Masters, and seven others were transported to Tyburn. Barton was dressed only in a shift. Her nun's habit had been stripped from her. She was likely filthy from her long imprisonment, starved and weak. Prisoners of the era had to pay for their food, water and bedding, and Barton was indigent. Her nun's habit had probably been taken to pay her jailer.She made a brief speech, almost certainly not of her own authorship:Hither I am come to die, and I have not been only the cause of mine own death, which most justly I have deserved, but also am the cause of the death of all those persons which at this time here suffer. And yet to say the truth, I am not so much to be blamed, considering that it was well known to these learned men that I was a poor wench without learning, and therefore they might easily have perceived that the things that were done by me could not proceed in no such sort; but their capacities and learning could right well judge, from whence they proceeded, and that they were altogether feigned; but because the thing which I feigned was profitable to them, therefore they much praised me, and bore me in hand, that it was the Holy Ghost and not I, that did them; and then I, being puffed up with their praises fell into a certain pride and foolish fantasy with myself, and thought I might feign what I would, which thing hath brought me to this case: and for the which now, I cry God and the King's Highness most heartily mercy, and desire you, all good people, to pray to God to have mercy on me, and on all them that here suffer with me.Perhaps it was this willingness to confess in public that saved Barton from the usual execution for a woman of burning at the stake.Hanging in the Tudor era didn't involve a swift snap of the neck like modern hanging. The condemned stood in the back of a cart while nooses were looped around their neck, tied to the triangular frame above them. The horses were slapped and the cart drawn away from under them. They slowly strangled as the crowd watched.Some condemned paid for the privacy of hoods to cover their faces. Barton wouldn't have had the money for that. They could also pay the executioner to ensure a quicker death; he would grab hold of their legs and pull downward to make them strangle quicker. Barton wouldn't have been given the courtesy.She would have died with the sound of the crowd laughing and jeering at her reddened face, and protruding tongue. The Tudors loved executions and saw them as a jolly good time, and Henry's agents had done a fine job of destroying her image as a holy woman.After her body finished jerking in their death throes, it was cut down and beheaded. Her head was boiled to preserve it and then impaled on Tower bridge as a warning to other traitors.Her followers fared far worse, suffering the full horrors of a traitor's death. They were cut down while still alive, castrated, then their stomachs cut open and their entrails burned before them. Only then were they beheaded, ending their torment. Their bodies were hacked into quarters to be sent all over the kingdom and displayed as an object lesson in what happens to those who fall afoul of the wrath of the king.Their clothing was stripped as a payment for the executioner. Barton's headless corpse was buried in a mass grave in the cemetery of the Grey Friars.St. Sepulchre convent was dissolved in 1537, and the land later granted to one of Henry's courtiers. No trace of the convent buildings remains today. Barton's ghost is said to haunt the church of Grey Friars.This article originally appeared on my blog.