#michael zell

[wutbju]

In Andrew Pledger's Surviving BJU: A Christian Cult podcast, Erin Burchwell remembers an untimely death at the BJU farm, Pleasant Pastures. I had never heard about it:

[poniatowskaja]

The mixed outbreaks of influenza and other diseases, following several years of poor harvests and high grain prices, must have rendered local administration uncertain at best, at worst impossible. In the middle of this extended period of dearth and deadly epidemics, the unpopularity of the government’s foreign policy was heightened by the loss of Calais to the French in January 1558. In Canterbury on the 23 January a young shoemaker’s apprentice, in his cups, said that if the French king invaded and offered every man eighteen pence a day, ‘I would serve the French king before I would serve the queen’s majesty.’ Unfortunately for Robert Cockerell, his fellow drinkers reported his remarks to the city authorities, who passed them on to the lord lieutenant, Sir James Cheyne, who transmitted them to the queen. She demanded a trial under martial law and by 28 January Cockerell had been hanged. Is it any wonder that local magistrates in Kent were unenthusiastic about further public executions?

Michael Zell, ‘The Establishment of a Protestant Church’, in Michael Zell, ed., Early Modern Kent 1540-1640

[poniatowskaja]

The restoration of Catholic services and the re-erection of stone altars began without formal legislation or compulsion, in some places by mid-August 1553, in others not until September or even later. Catholic services were not imposed by law until late December 1553, at which time some parishes were still not co-operating. In the first few months of the new reign, attempts to restore Catholic services – and the altar – often met with resistance from Protestant-inclined parishioners. Some clerics who (technically) against the law said mass in Kent in September 1553 were prosecuted by the Protestant judge Sir James Hales at the assizes, for which brazen opposition he himself was arrested. Just before this, a group of Catholic parishioners at Adisham removed the wooden communion table, only to see it restored by Protestant neighbours a week later. At a Protestant service on 3 September there was open confrontation between Catholic and Protestant parishioners, with the Protestant incumbent and his parish clerk denounced as ‘heretic knaves’, and the table thrown down once again. As late as the end of 1553 some Protestants in Maidstone mounted a petition, asking the government to permit them to continue their Edwardian services! A William Smith, who boldly presented the petition, was gaoled by the council for a week, only to pop up later as one of the many Maidstone men who joined Wyatt’s rebellion and were arrested.

Michael Zell, 'The Establishment of a Protestant Church', in Michael Zell, ed., Early Modern Kent 1540-1640

[maplestreetbookshop]

And of course, Maple Street gets honorary mention. As do our friends at Room 220. In fact, the space in which I do much of my own personal work is also called out as well, but I'll leave it up to you to figure out where that might be...