Elizabeth Barton (1506 – 20 April 1534), known as "The Nun of Kent", "The Holy Maid of London", "The Holy Maid of Kent" and later "The Mad Maid of Kent", was an English Catholic nun. She was executed as a result of her prophecies against the marriage of King Henry VIII of England to Anne Boleyn.
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Early life
Little is known about Barton's early life. She was born in 1506 in the parish of Aldington, about 12 miles from Canterbury, and appears to have come from a poor background. She was working as a servant in 1525 when she said her visions began. This followed her suffering for some months from "an impostume in her stomach, which divers times redounded upwards to her throat and was like to stop her breath", during which time she could not eat or drink, as well as seizures and periods of paralysis.
Visions
On Easter of 1525, at the age of 19, while working as a domestic servant in the household of Thomas Cobb, a farmer of Aldington, who worked for Archbishop William Warham, Barton claimed to have had very vivid visions and to have received divine revelations that predicted events. This included the death of a child living in her household or, more frequently, pleas for people to remain in the Catholic Church. Her revelations followed a similar pattern of Catholic orthodoxy seen in previous 'holy maids' in the later medieval period. She urged people to pray to the Virgin Mary and to undertake pilgrimages. Thousands believed in her prophecies and both Archbishop William Warham and Bishop John Fisher attested to her pious life.
When some events that Barton foretold apparently occurred, her reputation spread. Barton's revelations became publicly known and matters were brought up by Archbishop William Warham. The parish priest, Richard Masters, duly referred the matter to Warham, who appointed a commission to ensure that none of her prophecies was at variance with Catholic teaching. This commission was led by the Benedictine monk, Edward Bocking, Barton's spiritual advisor. When the commission decided favourably, Warham arranged for Barton to be received in the Benedictine St Sepulchre's Priory, Canterbury, under Bocking's spiritual direction.
Barton's life became very public. Nothing unorthodox was found in her case; her alleged public healing from the Virgin Mary at Court-at-Street (a hamlet near Lympne, Kent) increased attention and brought fame to her and to the Marian Shrine.
In 1527, Robert Redman published A marueilous woorke of late done at Court of Streete in Kent which discussed all of Barton's "miracles, revelations, and prophecies" and the controversies leading up to the arrests and executions.
In 1528, Barton held a private meeting with Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, the second most powerful man in England after Henry VIII, and she soon thereafter met twice with Henry himself. Henry accepted Barton because her prophecies supported the existing order. She also consulted with Richard Reynolds, a Bridgettine monk of Syon Abbey. He arranged a meeting between Barton and Thomas More, who was impressed by her fervour. Her prophecies warned against heresy and condemned rebellion at a time when Henry was attempting to stamp out Lutheranism and was afraid of possible uprising or even assassination by his enemies.
Conflict with Henry VIII
By 1534, Barton's prophecies were less in tune with the interests of Henry VIII, becoming more about political affairs of both state and religion. When the King began the process of obtaining an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon and seizing control of the Church in England from Rome, Barton opposed him. Barton strongly opposed the English Reformation and, in around 1532, began prophesying that if Henry remarried, he would die within a few months. She said that she had even seen the place in Hell to which he would go. Thomas More thought many prophesies were fictitiously attributed to her, and King Henry actually lived for a further 15 years. Remarkably, probably because of her popularity, Barton went unpunished for nearly a year. More, Reynolds & Fisher all warned her against ‘political’ statements and distanced themselves from her. The King's agents spread false rumours about mental illness and sexual relationships with priests.
With her reputation undermined, Barton was arrested by the Crown in 1533 and forced to confess that she had fabricated her revelations. What is known regarding her confession comes from Thomas Cromwell, his agents and other sources affiliated with the Crown. In Thomas Cromwell: A Life, Diarmaid MacCulloch describes the process in some detail, and it seems clear that Barton's arrest was used as part of a larger scheme to bring pressure on those who opposed the King's divorce & re-marriage. Cromwell very efficiently, and for the first time in England, arrested a printer who had produced a pamphlet supporting Barton and collected 700 copies of the print, none of which survive.
In mid-November 1533 an Extraordinary Great Council of Notables was held at Westminster over three days to discuss the ongoing dispute with the Pope and Elizabeth Barton. Barton, who had confessed, was put on show during the proceedings. The Lord Chancellor, Thomas Audley, in his speech on Barton, named and implicated many prominent people "in her seditious conversations". MacCulloch points out he only named those were already dead, whilst making it clear that other names were known. This implied threat was used to great effect by Cromwell in his efforts to bring about the legislation on the Kings divorce, the split with Rome and the attack on the monasteries.
Friar John Laurence of the Observant Friars of Greenwich gave evidence against Barton and against fellow Observants, Friars Hugh Rich and Richard Risby. Laurence then requested to be named to one of the posts left vacant by their imprisonment. She was condemned by a bill of attainder, the Treason of Elizabeth Barton (Pretended Revelations) Act 1533 (25 Hen. 8. c. 12), an act of the Parliament of England authorising punishment without trial. This was the first, but by no means the last, use of attainder by Henry and his government.
Legacy
Churches such as the Anglican Catholic Church of St Augustine of Canterbury continue to venerate Barton.
Popular culture
Barton's case is dealt with in the 2009 historical novel Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, and in its television adaptation, where she is played by Aimee-Ffion Edwards. Barton and her prophecies are also mentioned in Philippa Gregory’s 2014 novel The King's Curse; the sixth and final book in The Cousins' War series.
Barton is personally interrogated by Thomas Cromwell, Thomas Cranmer and Nicòla Frescobaldi in Shaking the Throne by author Caroline Angus.
In the play A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt, Barton is referenced during the interrogation of Thomas More as having been executed (she was executed about 15 months before More).
Barton is mentioned as the "Holy Maid" in the 1905 novel The King's Achievement by Robert Hugh Benson.
Barton is the subject of The Lost Book of Elizabeth Barton, a novel about a modern-day historian recovering a copy of Barton's prophecies and subsequently becoming entangled in a murder investigation in an English manor near St Sepulchre's Priory.