6. John Hooper
Explanatory Notes
a more bitter cup: Matthew 27: 33 – 4.
51 It is not I . . . queen's realm: Saunders likens the confrontation between Mary I and dissident preachers to Ahab's reproof to Elijah for opposing the worship of Baal (1 Kings 18: 17 – 19).
slept in the Lord: died in a state of grace.
Saint Lawrence: according to tradition, St Lawrence of Rome was roasted to death on a gridiron (258 CE).
green wood . . . burning fuel: Saunders died slowly because the executioners tormented him by employing poor tinder to light unseasoned wood, which smouldered rather than bursting into flames.
6. JOHN HOOPER
53 Six Articles: John Foxe and other Protestants vilified the Act of Six Articles
(1539) which reacted against evangelical reform by imposing stringent penalties including the death penalty for disbelief in clerical celibacy, auricular confession, celebration of private Masses, and the doctrine of transubstantiation.
rabbis: a term used contemptuously to identify Roman Catholic scholars with interpreters of Jewish laws during the time of Jesus Christ.
Sir Thomas Arundel: Sheriff of Dorset and an early patron of John Hooper, who notified Stephen Gardiner concerning the religious heterodoxy of his protégé.
54 molested and laid for: treated vexatiously.
higher parts of Germany: mountainous regions of central and southern Germany and the Alps.
English exiles: Protestants who left England following passage of the Act of Six Articles.
55 Orpheus's harp: in Greek mythology, Orpheus was capable of enchanting human beings, animals, and inanimate objects by playing on the lyre.
liberal: hospitable.
sometime more free . . . epistle to Timothy: among other qualities, St Paul expects the good bishop to exemplify moderation, hospitality, peacefulness, absence of avarice, and good management of his household
(1 Timothy 3: 1 – 7).
56 But I cannot tell . . . of this godly bishop: after causing considerable scandal within the Edwardian church establishment because of his protoPuritanical opposition to the wearing of ecclesiastical vestments, Hooper agreed to wear traditional episcopal attire as a concession to theologians such as Heinrich Bullinger, who wished to avoid dissension in the newly reformed Church of England.
57 mathematical cap . . . into four parts: a biretta; when worn by a bishop, the colour is commonly purple.