19. The Guernsey Martyrs
Explanatory Notes
'Weep you and howl . . . against the last day': James 5: 1 – 3.
colour: external appearance.
I believe in God . . . heaven and earth: the opening words of the Apostles'
Creed.
catholic faith: universal Christian faith, as opposed to the contested claim to universality of the Church of Rome.
193 my book against the Bishop of Winchester: He refers to An Answer of . . .
Thomas Archbishop of Canterbury, unto a Crafty Cavillation by Stephen Gardiner (London: Reyner Wolfe, 1551). This treatise reprints Bishop
Gardiner's An Explication and Assertion of the True Catholic Faith, Touching the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar (Rouen: Robert Caly, 1551) in the course of responding to it in the conventional pro and con fashion of an academic disputation. According to the imprint of the second edition of Cranmer's treatise, which was printed in 1580 by Foxe's publisher, John
Day, this exposition of Protestant sacramental theology was 'revised, and corrected by the archbishop before his martyrdom'. Prefaced to Day's edition is a biography of Cranmer extracted out of the Book of Martyrs and illustrated with its woodcut portrayals of his being pulled down from a platform at the University Church of St Mary the Virgin and ensuing execution (see Illustrations 17 – 18).
194 barker: one who harshly cries out against.
196 Ely: William Ely, Vice Principal of Brasenose College.
'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit': in emulation of the last words of St Stephen (Acts 7: 59), the first Christian martyr, many Marian martyrs uttered these words at the point of death.
19. THE GUERNSEY MARTYRS
198 fact: an act performed by.
member: an outlying district.
199 attached: indicted.
taken by inventory: inventoried and seized.
durance: imprisonment.
200 dean: the Dean of Guernsey is a cleric who serves as the local representative of the Bishop of Winchester and functions as judge of the island's ecclesiastical court.
201 complices: accomplices.
bailiff and jurats: on the island of Guernsey, this court of justice is made up of the chief magistrate and a body of twelve magistrates with life tenure.
They function both as judges and as members of a jury. Because the Bailiwick of Guernsey is a residual part of the Duchy of Normandy, rather than a formal part of the English kingdom, it falls under the jurisdiction of Norman common law.