Agnes Prest

Last updated

"What a madman art thou, to make them new noses, which within a few days shall all lose their heads!" Illustration of "Prest's Wife and the Stonemason" by Kronheim from the 1887 edition of Foxe's Book of Martyrs Joseph Martin Kronheim - Foxe's Book of Martyrs Plate VIII - Prest's Wife and the Stonemason.jpg
"What a madman art thou, to make them new noses, which within a few days shall all lose their heads!" Illustration of "Prest's Wife and the Stonemason" by Kronheim from the 1887 edition of Foxe's Book of Martyrs

Agnes Prest (died 15 August 1557) was a Cornish Protestant martyr from the reign of the Catholic Queen Mary. She was burned at the stake at Southernhay in Exeter in 1557.

According to Foxe's Book of Martyrs , and the story of Exeter Protestant Martyrs she lived near Launceston, Cornwall, and was married to a Catholic husband. She left her husband over his Catholicism, and went to be a spinner but she later on returned to him and was arrested and indicted at the Launceston Assizes. She was then put in Launceston jail and then transferred to Exeter jail. In Exeter jail, she was brought before the Bishop of Exeter, Bishop Turberville. When questioned, she denied the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. She was then released for a month.

Whilst she was released, she is said to have met a Dutch stonemason in Exeter Cathedral who was repairing the statues of the saints beloved of the Catholics. According to Foxe, she said to him "What a madman art thou, to make them new noses, which within a few days shall all lose their heads". After that point she was returned to jail where she had many visitors, including Walter Raleigh's mother, Catherine Raleigh, who praised her for her "godly life."

She was then tried for heresy by the Mayor of Exeter, refused to recant her beliefs and was executed by being burnt to death on 15 August 1557. [1] [2]

Denmark Road Protestant Martyrs' Memorial

In 1909 a monument in the form of an obelisk of Dartmoor granite was erected in Denmark Road, Exeter, to the memories of the Protestant Martyrs Agnes Prest (d. 1557) and Thomas Benet (d. 1531). This monument was designed by Harry Hems and was erected with money raised through public subscription. Two bronze sculpted relief panels by Harry Hems on the base of the obelisk depict Prest burning at the stake and Benet nailing his protest to the door of the Cathedral. [3] The following inscriptions are contained on two bronze plaques affixed on opposite sides of the base: [3]

To the glory of God & in honour of his faithful witnesses who near this spot yielded their bodies to be burned for love to Christ and in vindication of the principles of the Protestant Reformation this monument was erected by public subscription AD 1909. They being dead yet speak.

And:

In grateful remembrance of Thomas Benet, M.A. who suffered at Livery Dole A.D. 1531 for denying the supremacy of the Pope and of Agnes Prest who suffered on Southernhay A.D. 1557 for refusing to accept the doctrine of Transubstantiation. Faithful unto death.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Exeter Cathedral</span> Church in Devon, United Kingdom

Exeter Cathedral, properly known as the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter in Exeter, is an Anglican cathedral, and the seat of the Bishop of Exeter, in the city of Exeter, Devon, in South West England. The present building was complete by about 1400 and has several notable features, including an early set of misericords, an astronomical clock and the longest uninterrupted medieval stone vaulted ceiling in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Foxe</span> English historian and martyrologist (died 1587)

John Foxe was an English clergyman, theologian, and historian, notable for his martyrology Actes and Monuments, telling of Christian martyrs throughout Western history, but particularly the sufferings of English Protestants and proto-Protestants from the 14th century and in the reign of Mary I. The book was widely owned and read by English Puritans and helped to mould British opinion on the Catholic Church for several centuries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rowland Taylor</span> English Protestant martyr

Rowland Taylor was an English Protestant martyr during the Marian Persecutions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Livery Dole</span>

Livery Dole in Exeter, Devon, is an ancient triangular site between what is today Heavitree Road and Magdalen Road, in the eastern suburbs of Exeter. It was most notoriously used as a place for executions, and has contained an almshouse and chapel since 1591.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Day (printer)</span> English Protestant printer (c. 1522–1584)

John Day was an English Protestant printer. He specialised in printing and distributing Protestant literature and pamphlets, and produced many small-format religious books, such as ABCs, sermons, and translations of psalms. He found fame, however, as the publisher of John Foxe's Actes and Monuments, also known as the Book of Martyrs, the largest and most technologically accomplished book printed in sixteenth-century England.

The Ipswich Martyrs were nine people burnt at the stake for their Lollard or Protestant beliefs around 1515-1558. The executions were mainly carried out in the centre of Ipswich, Suffolk on The Cornhill, the square in front of Ipswich Town Hall. At that time the remains of the medieval church of St Mildred were used for the town's Moot Hall. Later, in 1645 Widow Lakeland was executed on the same site on the orders of Matthew Hopkins, the notorious Witchfinder General.

John White was a Headmaster and Warden of Winchester College during the English Reformation who, remaining staunchly Roman Catholic in duty to his mentor Stephen Gardiner, became Bishop of Lincoln and finally Bishop of Winchester during the reign of Queen Mary. For several years he led the college successfully through very difficult circumstances. A capable if somewhat scholastic composer of Latin verse, he embraced the rule of Philip and Mary enthusiastically and vigorously opposed the Reformation theology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Turberville</span> English Roman Catholic bishop

James Turberville was an English cleric who served as Bishop of Exeter from 1555 to 1559.

William Chedsey (1510?–1574?) was an English Roman Catholic priest and academic, who became archdeacon of Middlesex in 1556 and President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford in 1558.

John Woolton served as Bishop of Exeter in Devon, England, from 1579 to 1594.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Basset</span> Member of the Parliament of England

James Basset was a gentleman from the ancient Devonshire Basset family who became a servant of Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, by whom he was nominated MP for Taunton in 1553, for Downton in 1554, both episcopal boroughs. He also served thrice as MP for Devon in 1554, 1555, and 1558. He was a strong adherent to the Catholic faith during the Reformation started by King Henry VIII. After the death of King Edward VI in 1553 and the accession of the Catholic Queen Mary I, he became a courtier to that queen as a gentleman of the Privy Chamber and received many favours from both herself and her consort King Philip II of Spain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coventry Martyrs</span> Executed 16th-century English religious protesters

The Coventry Martyrs were a disparate group of Lollard Christians executed for their beliefs in Coventry between 1512 and 1522 and in 1555. Eleven of them are commemorated by a six-metre-high (20 ft) monument, erected in 1910 in a public garden in the city, between Little Park Street and Mile Lane; and by a mosaic constructed in 1953 inside the entrance to Broadgate House in the city centre. Some of the streets in the city's Cheylesmore suburb are named after them.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Benet (martyr)</span> English Protestant martyr

Thomas Benet from Cambridge, was an English Protestant martyr during the reign of King Henry VIII. In 1524, he moved to Torrington, North Devon, with his wife and family so that he could exercise his religious conscience more freely in a county where no one knew him. He was executed by burning on 15 January 1531, for heresy, at Livery Dole outside Exeter in Devon, under the supervision of Sir Thomas Dennis of Holcombe Burnell, near Exeter, then Sheriff of Devon.

Richard Argentine, alias Sexten, M.D,, was an English physician and divine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Holcombe Burnell</span> Village in Devon, England

Holcombe Burnell is a civil parish in the Teignbridge district, in Devon, England, the church of which is about 4 miles west of Exeter City centre. There is no village clustered around the church, rather the nearest village within the parish is Longdown. Only the manor house and two cottages are situated next to the church. The former manor house next to the church is today known as Holcombe Burnell Barton having subsequently been used as a farmhouse. The manor was in the historical Hundred of Wonford. In 2011 the parish had a population of 536.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Denys</span> English administrator and politician

Sir Thomas Denys of Holcombe Burnell, near Exeter, Devon, was a prominent lawyer who served as Sheriff of Devon nine times between 1507/8 to 1553/4 and as MP for Devon. He acquired large estates in Devon at the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Dennis (died 1592)</span> English politician

Sir Robert Dennis, JP of Holcombe Burnell in Devon, was a Member of Parliament for Devon in 1555 and served as Sheriff of Devon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stratford Martyrs Memorial</span> Memorial in London

The Stratford Martyrs Memorial is a memorial that commemorates the group of 11 men and two women who were burned at the stake together for their Protestant beliefs, at Stratford-le-Bow or Stratford near London in England on 27 June 1556, during the Marian persecutions.

References

  1. John Foxe (1887 republication), Book of Martyrs, London & New York: Frederick Warne and Co., pp. 242-44
  2. Stirling, Mary E. T. (1982). The Story of the Exeter Protestant Martyrs. Bedford, England: the Protestant Alliance.
  3. 1 2 Cornforth, David. "Livery Dole Martyrs' Memorial". Exeter Memories. Retrieved 17 December 2011.