The Mystic Nun Killed By Henry VIII

As if the Tudor world wasn't mad enough, in 1528 a mystic nun showed up demanding an audience with Henry VIII. Elizabeth Barton stood in front of him and told him that his controversial marriage to Anne Boleyn would make God strike him down. Did Barton survive this? Well, what do you think. As the only nun executed in English history, what was her origin story? How did she become so famous? And if her visions weren't real, why would she be faking them? Joining Kate today is author and historian Hayley Nolan https://www.hayleynolan.com/, to help us get to know Elizabeth Barton and her mystic ways better. Voting is now open for the Listener's Choice Award at this year's Podcast Awards. Click to place your vote on the Spotify mobile app: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DX74ZgzrlyH29 This episode was edited by Tim Arstall. The producer was Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Freddy Chick. Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener surveyhere https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/6FFT7MK. All music from Epidemic Sounds. Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast. Voting is now open for the Listener's Choice Award at this year's Podcast Awards! UK & Ireland listeners please place your vote on the Spotify mobile app here: https://open.spotify.com/s/xhg6PJa Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Kate Lister?

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• 0:37Speaker 01

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• 1:09Kate Lister?

  Hello, my lovely betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister. Welcome back once more to Betwixt the Sheets, the smutty historical podcast. Yeah, yeah, I know what you're here for. I'm here for it too. So let's not beat around the bush for much longer. But before we can go any further into said bush, I do have to tell you, this is an adult podcast, spoken by adults to other adults, about adulty things in an adulty way, covering a range of adult subjects due to being an adult too. Because if you weren't already aware of the fact that this podcast can get a little bit naughty, but I suspect that's why we were all here in the first place. Right, let's crack on.

• 1:44Kate Lister?

  This story begins in a small village near Canterbury in England in the 16th century with a servant girl called Elizabeth. She has no noble birth, no fortune, no political ambition that we know of. She was just an everyday background grunt. But then almost overnight, Elizabeth came to national importance. There was a mysterious illness, a series of visions, and suddenly bishops, pilgrims, and even the King and Queen of England are desperate to hear what she says. I mean, that's a hell of a career trajectory, isn't it? But as Elizabeth will learn one fundamental rule, what goes up must come down. So who helped Elizabeth on her way up? And who was there to greet her on her way down?

• 2:29Kate Lister?

  I am ready to find out if you are.

• 2:55Kate Lister?

  Hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex scandal and society, with me, Kate Lister. Long before social media influencers were selling protein powder and suspiciously effective teeth whitening kits, Tudor England had Elizabeth Barton, the so-called Holy Maid of Kent. And she didn't have followers so much as, well, pilgrims. And she was even epically cancelled, not online. She ended up being hanged by the King, the only nun to be executed in England, in fact. Elizabeth's tale is one of belief, abuse of power, and one woman's extraordinary rise and fall from obscurity. Joining me today to tell us more about this extraordinary woman is the fabulous author and historian Hayley Nolan. Rosary beads are ready, everyone, let's do this.

• 3:45Kate Lister?

  Well, hello and welcome to Betwixt the Sheets. It's only Hayley Nolan. How are you doing?

• 3:51Speaker 02

  Very hot, but yeah, it's sweating already, but you know, it is.

• 3:57Kate Lister?

  Trying to do history in a heatwave. It's just, you just reach critical temperature mass, don't you? And you're just like, I don't care anymore. I don't care about history, leave me alone.

• 4:07Speaker 02

  At least we're not on Bake Off on Ice Cream Week.

• 4:11Kate Lister?

  Yeah, all right, yeah. Think of those poor souls. Absolutely. But you have a new book coming out, don't you?

• 4:18Speaker 02

  Yes. Notorious Anne Boleyn and the Great Tudor Hoax. What could be more intriguing than that?

• 4:25Kate Lister?

  I know, well, that's a very good title. That's a good, not clickbait, read bait.

• 4:30Speaker 02

  I went for that. I wanted people to go, ooh, hoax, you say? Tell me more.

• 4:35Kate Lister?

  What made you want to write this book? The question that we ask of everyone with a new book, but what's the origin story?

• 4:41Speaker 02

  I came across this snippet of information that said, so I'd heard of, if this is the Holy Nun of Kent, and I'm sure any Tudor fan will know of her or heard of her in passing. She was basically, she did the Great Tudor hoax, but I'd always dismissed her as a sort of crackpot. And I shouldn't have, that was my own mistake, but I did. And then I came across one piece of evidence that said that Anne Boleyn offered her a place in her household. And I thought, hang on a second, why? There is more to this story. I need to come back to this. So I parked it, and I'd always thought, come back to all this evidence. And then I, the time just popped up sometime last year. This has been a very whirlwind experience for me. I wrote it, I mean, I did all the research probably in about six months, because it

• 5:25Speaker 02

  was all just there, ready, fully formed in the archive.

• 5:27Kate Lister?

  Wow.

• 5:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was actually pretty thrilling. And then I wrote the actual book itself, once I'd got everything in order, in about three months, because I just couldn't wait to get on to the next section.

• 5:37Kate Lister?

  It just came spilling out.

• 5:40Speaker 02

  I loved it. I actually, I genuinely enjoyed writing this. Yeah, it was so fun.

• 5:44Kate Lister?

  There will be many people listening who are going, the Holy Maid of where? Sorry, what, who, pardon, who's that person? Because you just enlighten us, the Holy Maid of Kent, who is that?

• 5:54Speaker 02

  It's a wild story. So basically, she faked prophecies from God.

• 6:00Kate Lister?

  She's not that holy.

• 6:01Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yes, but that's up to debate, some might say. I tried, I'm going to sound so sceptical as I tell this story, because I know how it unfolds. But yes, I'll try not to be sceptical at the beginning. She stood before the King of England and threatened to his face that if he divorced Catherine of Aragon and married Anne Boleyn, God would strike him down.

• 6:24Kate Lister?

  As you do.

• 6:25Speaker 02

  I know, I know how ballsy, honestly. To do what she did, it's pretty incredible. So then from there, she became a national celebrity. She had books and pamphlets written about her. She went on tour. She had these, what I call, I position them as her celebrity manager and publicist, because just so I want people to understand the relationship she had with what was essentially her spiritual father.

• 6:51Speaker 02

  He was also not so spiritual a father. But what was incredible was then the celebrity fans she gained in people like the Pope, you know, just small people.

• 7:01Kate Lister?

  Holy fuck, wow. Oh, she's not messing about, okay.

• 7:04Speaker 02

  She was not messing about. The Cardinal Wolsey. And the thing is, the Tudor court and Henry VIII actually blame her for the seven-year delay in divorcing Catherine and marrying Anne Boleyn, and also the break from Rome. They say that she seduced the Pope with her diabolical lies to excommunicate the King. In fact, this is what makes me think, my God, regardless of whether this was a hoax or not, it's incredible, that when the Pope sent his threat of excommunication to Henry VIII, he sent it to the Holy Nun of Kent first.

• 7:38Kate Lister?

  So she's a big deal then. What's her name?

• 7:42Speaker 02

  Elizabeth Barton. I know, I always refer to her as the nun. It was, there's a lot of Elizabeths in my research at the moment, so it just helps me to.

• 7:48Kate Lister?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 7:49Speaker 02

  Elizabeth Barton.

• 7:50Kate Lister?

  This is somebody that stood in front, I don't know where she stood in front of him, but just said, you can't get married.

• 7:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:56Kate Lister?

  And then, and then got a load of fans, including the Pope, and became a Tudor celebrity?

• 8:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, she was the influencer of her day. She did influence a lot of people, so.

• 8:06Kate Lister?

  Wow, okay, all right.

• 8:09Speaker 02

  I loved this story.

• 8:11Kate Lister?

  She has caught my attention. So presumably then, for her to be doing this, she must have had a very aristocratic background and be very influential to be, to be shouting at the King.

• 8:21Speaker 02

  You would think, but that's what makes this story so intriguing, even more intriguing than it already is. Note, so she started off as a housemaid. So she was housemaid to Thomas Cobb. Now, this is important. Thomas Cobb was a land agent to the Archbishop of Canterbury. So you can see now where the connection is that she would end up in front of Henry VIII, because, as you can imagine, in Tudor England, there were many a crackpot claiming to have visions.

• 8:46Kate Lister?

  There must have been 10 a penny.

• 8:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, so maybe we could call her a nepo prophet, because she had a connection, potentially. So yeah, so she started having this bizarre illness that no one could name. She would have what was described as convulsions and a trance-like immobility.

• 9:05Kate Lister?

  How old was she when she, when she was doing this?

• 9:07Speaker 02

  Yes, but so this was 1526, and she was 19 years old. So this was a couple of years before she was pushed in front of the King. And then she was, for some reason, placed within the chamber of the youngest child in the family, who was also suffering from an illness that no one names. And she inquired with one of the nurses, is the child still alive? And she said, yeah, it's still alive, so it won't be long. And then apparently, as they tell the story, in the next breath, the child died. And so obviously, as horrific as that was, they suddenly thought, hang on a second, has she just prophesied the death of a child? And she's having all these convulsions. Now, is this a sign from God? Or is she possessed by the devil? It could have gone one of two ways. So that's when they brought in the local parson of Oldington.

• 9:52Kate Lister?

  It's a sensible decision. Hashtag science.

• 9:55Speaker 02

  You've got to find out, is she legit? So he was brought in. And this is where it gets interesting. I mean, it was interesting already, but every statement I say, I'll say, and this is where it get interesting. But um yeah, it just gets wilder and wilder. So he said, oh, my goodness, while you are having one of your trances that I've just witnessed, you just spoke many high and notable matters of the seven deadly sins and the ten commandments. This is a miracle. You won't remember this because you were unconscious, you were in your trance. So do you see it a little bit suspicious?

• 10:28Kate Lister?

  I would be asking some questions, but then I'm not an everyday person in the 16th century. And I guess to them, this kind of stuff is conceivable that she's having. So she's having like fits and she's having visions and she's walking around prophesizing about people's babies dying at the age and she's 19.

• 10:48Speaker 02

  Yes. And this and when apparently whenever this voice that she didn't know was being spoken when she was in a trance, when it spoke of the joys of heaven, it spoke so sweetly. But when it spoke of hell, it spoke terribly and like a sort of demon voice. So you can imagine why they'd be slightly freaked out either way.

• 11:03Kate Lister?

  And who's this pastor person that turned up? What's his name?

• 11:07Speaker 02

  Yeah. So the person of Oldington, Richard Mester. So he then ran to the Archbishop of Canterbury and was very eager, said that, oh, and also I must point out, she herself was clearly very skeptical at this point. There was clearly some pushback because he threatened, essentially threatened her and said, you would be greatly blamed if you did not share these wondrous works that are shown to you through God.

• 11:29Kate Lister?

  So she's having fits and it seems that when she's having fits, she is unconscious. So this could be, we'll discuss what it could be, but it could be something like epilepsy. Let's just, just go with that. And but then this guy turns up and says that while she was out having these fits, she was saying all of this stuff.

• 11:45Speaker 02

  Yes, all these godly visions. So he clearly wanted to believe it was something holy, you know, because at this time, the church was coming under threat from the reformers. People were questioning things. So I feel, my instinct is, he didn't want especially a demonic presence in the house of the land agent of the Archbishop of Canterbury. I think this would have been raised. So when he went to the Archbishop, though, he was also skeptical and said, okay, look, before we ring it as a miracle, let me send some more of my men. And this is where he sent over a man called Edward Bocking, who was a monk from Christ Church in Canterbury, to sort of, again, observe.

• 12:23Kate Lister?

  Bocking, okay.

• 12:24Speaker 02

  Bocking, remember that name. He is going to become the spiritual father, the manager. So during his time there, then she had another revelation, said, you know what, I am ill, but Our Lady said, if I go to the local church, she will cure me of my illness. So he took her there. Apparently 2,000 to 3,000 people went to witness this miracle of Our Lady, like sharing this doll. She didn't cure her. She said, I will delay your cure for a season, which is a little bit suspicious. Maybe the girl knew she.

• 12:58Kate Lister?

  Waiting lists.

• 12:59Speaker 02

  You know, you've got to take that into consideration. Yeah. The whole long line of people who needed to be cured. Sorry. It's like the NHS.

• 13:07Kate Lister?

  Exactly. You're not going to get seen right away. Calm down.

• 13:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, I will do, but in a few time, like.

• 13:13Kate Lister?

  We'll get to it.

• 13:15Speaker 02

  But in the meantime, she should go and profess herself a nun. So join a nunnery. And I think it was that that made people think, hang on, she can't be the devil. The devil wouldn't say, go join a nunnery. She must be holy. And it was at that point, she was seen as like the holy nun of Kent. And the local chapel was turned into a shrine to her, which obviously people paid to visit and be cured.

• 13:36Kate Lister?

  Of course they did. Of course, of course. Did anyone call a doctor at any point? Or was it all just, we'll go and get the vicar immediately?

• 13:44Speaker 02

  Um, I think that I feel like there was this physician at some point, very, very early on, I think.

• 13:52Kate Lister?

  It must have been like, I mean, I know that it's not cutting edge, but like even somebody to just, you know, have a look from a physical point of view.

• 13:59Speaker 02

  They probably put a few litres on her.

• 14:01Kate Lister?

  Yeah, it's not working.

• 14:03Speaker 02

  It's not working. She's still having.

• 14:05Kate Lister?

  She's still, damn it. We're at the limit of our medical knowledge here. Right. Okay.

• 14:10Speaker 02

  So she went to Saint Sepulcher Nunnery in Canterbury.

• 14:14Kate Lister?

  But she's not a nun.

• 14:15Speaker 02

  She wasn't a nun at that point. She was Holy Maid of Kent, and then she would become the Holy Nun of Kent. Yeah. And it was at that point that Edward Bocking said, do you know what? Also, during one of your trances that you won't remember conveniently, you said, I should become your spiritual father.

• 14:29Kate Lister?

  Oh, look at that. How handy.

• 14:31Speaker 02

  Exactly. So he, at that point, became her celebrity manager. He would visit her regularly. He would get all the prophecies that she had. It's like, anything you hear, tell me. I don't suppose God's told you anything about this divorce that Henry VIII is wanting to have at the moment. And she said, give me a moment. I'm going to go away, have a prophecy, and I'll come back to you.

• 14:53Kate Lister?

  The other nuns must have been pissed off.

• 14:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, yeah.

• 14:57Kate Lister?

  Like, you're just living your life in your nunnery. You've worked really hard to be a nun. I'm not really sure of what the, the, you know, the process is to become a nun, but I'm pretty sure it's not just turning up at the door going, I had a vision, now I'm a nun. Like, you must have to have nun training.

• 15:10Speaker 02

  They went to nun school.

• 15:11Kate Lister?

  Nun school, right? And I, like, having visions, that's like years into nun school. You can't just turn up.

• 15:19Speaker 02

  I was gonna say vow of chastity. There you go. They take the vow of chastity, the vow of poverty. They go through a lot. They give up a lot.

• 15:25Kate Lister?

  Yes. And now they have it. So she's gone and live in a nunnery. I bet, I bet there was some talking behind her back. Oh, she's had another bloody miracle, has she? Right? Okay. Good for her.

• 15:34Speaker 02

  No, that's such a good point, though, because when it did sort of come to her downfall, the nuns were very quick to be snitching on her, saying she would sneak out in the middle of the night to meet up with this man.

• 15:45Kate Lister?

  See, see.

• 15:47Speaker 02

  They didn't have her back, you know?

• 15:49Kate Lister?

  All right. So we've got this situation happening over here. She's having her visions and all these men are around her going, well, when you were out, you actually told me to be in charge. What's happening at the Tudor Court, like running in parallel with this? Like, how are these two timelines going to collide?

• 16:06Speaker 02

  So when she started in that 1526, that's when Henry VIII focused on Anne Boleyn and decided he wanted to marry her, declared that in 1527. So it kind of came out around the time. So yeah, by 1520, she met Henry VIII in 1528, we've figured. That's another thing about all these sources. They tell them all in retrospect, when everyone was being hauled before the authorities. So they tell them very conversationally and don't give us exact dates and exact months. So we have to pinpoint by when they corroborated with each other and also like other things that they mention and timelines. So yes, Anne was sort of raising to prominence at the same time that she was, when she was having her books and pamphlets written about her and her miracles. When, when she was in the nunnery,

• 16:49Speaker 02

  she was women whose breast milk had run dry. She was making them be able to produce breast milk.

• 16:55Kate Lister?

  Oh, she's doing miracles. Okay.

• 16:57Speaker 02

  Full on miracles. She had brought a man back from the dead. Let's not brush over that.

• 17:01Kate Lister?

  Oh, okay. Okay. Right. It's impressive.

• 17:04Speaker 02

  I think so, really. And conclusive evidence, really. So, but yeah, so that's at the point where she decided, well, she decided, I think her managers wanted to stop the Catholic divorce from going ahead, essentially. So they tried to contact the king via Thomas More. They sent him a letter. He dismissed it, mocked it slightly, said, you know, I don't really see anything valuable in her visions, apart from the fact that now and again, she speaks in rhyme, which is impressive, but.

• 17:37Kate Lister?

  I'm impressed. Yeah. I don't know if that's, I don't know if that's a vision, but I'm still impressed by it.

• 17:41Speaker 02

  It's kind of like the Eminem of her day. So he dismissed it. So then they changed tact, went for Walsey with a letter that by this point, the Archbishop was on board, Archbishop William Warham, on board, sent a letter to the King's advisor, Cardinal Walsey. And that's where she stood in front of him and threatened him that if you let this divorce go ahead, God will bring you down as well, not just the king.

• 18:05Kate Lister?

  How does she end up in front of him? Because that's like, yeah, she's a nun and she's doing a miracles. But like, to be standing in front of the King's chief advisor, that's still elite.

• 18:14Speaker 02

  So this was through the Archbishop of Canterbury. So it was obviously, so yes, he gave them a letter and obviously the letter of introduction. And so that's where the whole Nepo prophet part comes into play. You clearly have seen that they've all got these connections and that.

• 18:29Kate Lister?

  Exactly.

• 18:30Speaker 02

  How can you get in front of the King of England? And I also think that getting in front of Walsey is one thing, but because he was also trying to stop the divorce from happening, wasn't getting anywhere with Henry and was faintly terrified of him. I believe he thought, well, hang on, if this girl's willing to do it, let's push her in front of him. Let's see if a bit of godly threats were terrifying. And that's how she found herself chastising the king, saying, I mean, her, her threats got more and more elaborate as he kind of dismissed her over the years. So it went from, you'll lose your throne within a month. And then it turned into, I, I see your seat in hell.

• 19:07Kate Lister?

  Wow.

• 19:09Speaker 02

  Which is a bold claim for a girl, or for anyone to say to the King of England. That was actually the one that got her condemned.

• 19:16Kate Lister?

  But before we get to that, like, how common were mystics in Tudor England? Like, was it, like, I know we were talking earlier that they were 10 a penny, but the idea that you can have some visions and you can throw some fits and then suddenly the most powerful people in the country are like carting you around and are really interested in it. That it just seems so bizarre that that happened. But this is a culture where mystics are important. And maybe you can tell us a little bit, like, well, what is a mystic, actually?

• 19:44Speaker 02

  Well, so if you think about it, Tudor England was incredible. I don't feel we can really appreciate how spiritual and superstitious a time was. Lifespans were short, so life on earth was sort of seen as a prelude to everlasting salvation, you know, in God's spiritual kingdom. And so the only sort of guidance they had to go by is how to navigate earth was the revelations and the wondrous teachings of the Bible. So they clung to all those incredible stories there. And anyone who had a closer, well, was deemed to have a closer spiritual connection to God, which is your preachers and your visionaries and your prophets, anyone who could potentially,

• 20:25Speaker 02

  you know, cure you or forgive your sins, indulgences at this time were huge. And this is something that Martin Luther was calling out. So an indulgence, essentially, for anyone who doesn't know, the sale of forgiveness for your sins. So for a donation to the church, you could have your sins wiped clean, or maybe some, some of your years in purgatory could be washed clean. However, people took advantage of this. And there were a few corrupt indulgence preachers. One, who is a great example of this, is called Johann Tetzel. And he said, "The indulgence that I am selling is so potent that it could forgive the sins of a man who had violated the Virgin Mary."

• 21:04Kate Lister?

  See, I mean, I understand that that's quite a handy shortcut if you don't fancy devoting yourself to a lifetime of prayer and, and penitence. But I can also see how this could be quite a corrupt system. Bung the church a few quid and I'll let you off.

• 21:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's what everyone started to push back against. And like the sale of access to holy relics, which people did believe in them. But then again, there were people who, Anne Boleyn looked into one at Hales Abbey, that priests were mixing up a concoction that was pretending to be the blood of Christ, which people would then pay to be in front of and be cured by. So yeah, there was a lot of corruption. But that's how people believed so much in these visionaries. And everything was interpreted like as a message from God, whether it was inclement weather, or a dream, or indeed a prophecy.

• 21:53Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 21:53Speaker 02

  It is kind of hard for us to conceptualise. Now, even I think the most devout people today are not as devout as they were.

• 22:00Kate Lister?

  Oh, no, no. I mean, this was just part of the, the warp and the weft of people's lives, wasn't it? Now, women weren't allowed to be preachers at this point, whether like they couldn't, or maybe they were, you can tell me. But if you're a mystic, it sort of seems like a, like a way through, thinking of people like Marjorie Kemp, or even, even people like Joan of Arc, you know, that the idea of that there's a woman and that she is magical.

• 22:25Speaker 02

  But you notice how they allow these women this sort of power until it gets too powerful.

• 22:30Kate Lister?

  Yes.

• 22:30Speaker 02

  Then they bring them down. There's always that little pattern going on. And I think with it being like a young girl, she's sort of seen as innocent and pure, a vessel. They are always seen as the vessel and never the important ones. It's always the message they're bringing. And actually, what's interesting is during her time, Elizabeth Barton's time in power, or in her celebrity land, another prophet came to her saying, "Oh my God, I was told to come to you because I'm also having these visions and I thought you could help me." But instead of aiding her, she warns her off and says, "Oh, do you know what? No, no, no, your visions are from the devil." And I think she was actually threatened. That's my interpretation anyway, because-

• 23:09Kate Lister?

  Get off my turf.

• 23:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. Like, "You're coming for my success." What if there was, yeah, what if she took over where, you know what it's like today when there's a new celebrity? And what is it, the sort of-

• 23:21Kate Lister?

  It's not healthy competition, that, is it? No, absolutely.

• 23:27Kate Lister?

  I'll be back with Hayley and Elizabeth after this short break.

• 23:38Kate Lister?

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• 24:23Kate Lister?

  comes in. They partner with over 120 insurance plans, making the average copay just $15 per session. That's real therapy from licensed professionals at a price that actually makes sense. Because the whole point of World Mental Health Day is making sure people actually get help, not just think about it. And Rula sticks with you throughout your journey, checking in to make sure your care is actually helping you move forward. With World Mental Health Day this October, it's a good reminder that taking care of your mental health can start with one step. Visit rula.com/shets to get started. That's R-U-L-A dot com slash S-H-E-E-T-S. You deserve mental health care that works with you, not against your budget.

• 25:11Speaker 01

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• 25:41Kate Lister?

  Hello, betwixters. I'm jumping in here because I have some very exciting news. Betwixt the Sheets has set up camp on YouTube. That's right, it took us a while, but we are there now. So if you are the kind of person who likes to see your podcasts as well as hear your podcasts, you can now go and find us right there. And the link is in the show notes. And please remember to like and subscribe because the people in charge of the money really do like that. Right, let's get on with it.

• 26:23Kate Lister?

  She is caught in some of the most powerful people in the country. How does she get to be in contact with the king? What is that encounter like? Or Anne Boleyn, for example? And what did they make of her?

• 26:36Speaker 02

  So, almost definitely, I don't see how else it could have happened. That they went to Wolsey, then the next minute she was in front of the king. So it was obviously Wolsey who put her in front of-

• 26:44Kate Lister?

  Where, though? Like, accosting him on the street?

• 26:46Speaker 02

  Oh, no, no, no. Yeah, in, in his audience chamber. Yeah, it was an official audience with the king. It's insane.

• 26:54Kate Lister?

  So he had to sign off on this. Do you want an audience with some woman that's going to turn up and shout at you? Yeah, that sounds great.

• 26:59Speaker 02

  I love that. Well, you think, the thing is, he had already dismissed the sort of spiritual warnings at the beginning of his marriage with Catherine of Aragon, which is why they had the dispensation in the first place, saying, "You're your brother's widow." So maybe he thought, "Oh, God, I've not had a son," which is God's, you know, good grace and proving that he's, approves of the marriage. "So maybe I shouldn't have, maybe I should hear this girl out." But he wasn't too worried at first. It seems like he dismissed it. You'd think he would have berated her, but he didn't. Sort of was slightly amused by her. And then as the visions went on, as her power grew, as they realised, hang on, she was inciting rebellion in Catherine of Aragon and Princess Mary, and, and getting the Pope on board,

• 27:44Speaker 02

  and slowing down their marriage, essentially. I think it was Anne Boleyn's idea to get her back in, where she did at first berate the king again and tell him more visions she had. But then Anne Boleyn offered her a place in her household.

• 27:58Kate Lister?

  How bizarre.

• 27:59Speaker 02

  No. Which, don't you think that, I believe that that speaks volumes as to who Anne Boleyn thought was pulling the strings. If she really thought this girl was the main ringleader, super corrupt, trying to-

• 28:11Kate Lister?

  I see.

• 28:12Speaker 02

  She wouldn't have wanted her in her household, would she?

• 28:15Kate Lister?

  She's trying to wrestle her away from, from the, the puppet masters.

• 28:19Speaker 02

  Exactly. And also, I mean, I'm, she was trying to shut her off as well. Two birds with one stone. But if she, because I honestly don't think she would have offered her a place in her household with that intimate access to her if she'd have thought she was truly evil and corrupt herself, so.

• 28:39Kate Lister?

  Does she take her up on that?

• 28:40Speaker 02

  No, I think at this point she, well, this was before Anne Boleyn was married. So I still don't think the nun thought she was ever going to be able to go through with this marriage.

• 28:48Kate Lister?

  What Catherine of Aragon made of all of this?

• 28:51Speaker 02

  Well, Catherine actually refused to see her, which was very smart. And even Thomas Cromwell, the new advisor to the king, said that it was very smart of her to keep her distance. But at the same time, she allowed her best friend, the Lady Exeter, to meet with the nun. And they had various meetings where she would go into a trance. And actually, it seems like Exeter wanted some advice and prayers from the Holy Nun. So she believed her, which proves, indicates that Catherine of Aragon also believed this girl.

• 29:24Kate Lister?

  Right.

• 29:24Speaker 02

  And Henry VIII did say, he admitted to the French ambassador, that it was this nun's, well, all her terrible words and godly preachings that did incite Catherine and Mary's disobedience. So, and you know, everyone looked to them as the Catholic figureheads.

• 29:43Kate Lister?

  Yep.

• 29:44Speaker 02

  So I think they only fought as hard as Catherine and Mary wanted to. So they could see that she was having this real impact. But yeah, so at the point that she met up with Anne Boleyn, I think she got too big for her boots.

• 29:58Kate Lister?

  And what about her handlers? What about that guy Bocking? What's he up to?

• 30:02Speaker 02

  So he is a shady figure, I would say. She definitely was manipulated by him. Because there were so many instances. So, okay, when they were all questioned at the end, there are about three different documents that use the same wording, that she had all these prophecies to please him, to satisfy the minds of those around her. And he would come to her regularly. He would apparently feed her stories of what the other prophets were saying, maybe to inspire her. But when she apparently wasn't, she was going through a spell of not having visions, he then said, and I quote, "How are you living virtuously?

• 30:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think God has taken back his good grace since you've not had any revelations lately." And when I read that, I thought, okay.

• 30:52Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 30:53Speaker 02

  I see. So, and what's interesting is the reason he said, "Are you living virtuously", is because prior to that, she had confessed her sexual fantasies. She was grappling with, they call it sexual incontinency, which is morality. And remember, she has taken a vow of chastity. She is a young girl, so she's naturally going to be having these very normal urges. She shared them most likely in confidence with him, but then they found a draft of a new book that he was penning. And I think that because it was sort of laced with errors, I don't believe it was written with her consent or knowledge or input in any way. And he details the sexual fantasies she was having.

• 31:35Kate Lister?

  Shit.

• 31:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, he was about to lay it bare, literally.

• 31:39Kate Lister?

  Wow.

• 31:40Speaker 02

  So, and also there was a case of someone said, oh yes, he shared her sexual fantasies with me at Christchurch.

• 31:47Kate Lister?

  Does that book survive? Do we know what she was fantasizing about?

• 31:50Speaker 02

  Yes, fornicating with devils, basically.

• 31:53Kate Lister?

  That's pretty tame, isn't it? That's, okay.

• 31:55Speaker 02

  Is it? Okay, okay.

• 31:58Kate Lister?

  It is in my book. That's, that's, that's pretty, that's pretty normal, pretty vanilla.

• 32:02Speaker 02

  Okay, all right, okay. I'd like to chat to you more about that, maybe you'll say.

• 32:07Kate Lister?

  But I can see how they, they would be very, very upset by it.

• 32:10Speaker 02

  For a young nun, this was not tame.

• 32:13Kate Lister?

  Yeah, that's true. That's true.

• 32:15Speaker 02

  Wriggling on her, becoming naked, turning into a naked man, offered her marriage. And so this is the point at which I question, first of all, I was thinking, okay, was she sharing her sexual fantasies just to be, to, you know, absolve herself?

• 32:30Kate Lister?

  There's something weird going on here.

• 32:32Speaker 02

  Well, that's the thing. Was she flirting with him? Did she want to entice him in some way? Or was he taking advantage of, perhaps she did have a childish crush, wasn't a child, but, you know, a young crush. Because she then, one of her fantasies, she said, "The devil came to me, offered me marriage. I said, no, he spat in my face, and I have wiped this black spit off me, and look, here it is on a cloth, smell it. And apparently it smelled of human species." So she had smeared herself.

• 33:01Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 33:02Speaker 02

  Asked him to sniff it. And I'm thinking, that's not the actions of someone who was trying to flirt with a man.

• 33:07Kate Lister?

  That's a misguided flirting, that one. We need to, yeah, we need to rein that one back in a little bit. Do, it sounds to me like, like, this, this sounds like it's very coerced. I mean, it'd be, it'd be very interesting to get the psychologists involved in this. But this sounds like somebody who's putting pressure on a young girl to perform, to perform these visions. And if he's doing that, it sounds like, like he's getting something out of hearing these sexual fantasies as well. Like, if she's going to that extent to, to, you know.

• 33:38Speaker 02

  To revolt him.

• 33:39Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 33:39Speaker 02

  That's what that says to me. She was trying to put him off rather than entice him. Or maybe switch the power, because I think.

• 33:47Kate Lister?

  Or prove something to him.

• 33:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's the thing. And throughout this book, I try not to sort of, I pose the question to the reader, you know, could it be this? Could it be that? I really try and let the reader make up their decisions to like, what was her motivation?

• 34:03Kate Lister?

  Well, let's talk about that then. And I know as a good historian, is like, we have to first of all say, we don't know, we weren't there. We can't apply modern lens to historical context. It could be, you know, we have to be careful with these things. But like, you must have had thoughts. Like what, because the options here is like, number one, that she's just making all of this up, and that she's consciously aware that she's making it all up. And then we can have a discussion about why she might be doing that. Number two, she believes that she's having these visions. Or like, number three, medically, something is happening to her. Like, what's your take on this one?

• 34:34Speaker 02

  Well, medically, something clearly was happening.

• 34:36Kate Lister?

  Yes.

• 34:36Speaker 02

  In terms of the vision. So I think the reason why she went along with it at first is that she trusted these men who said, look, you're saying all these incredible things.

• 34:44Kate Lister?

  Something's happening to me.

• 34:46Speaker 02

  I don't, yeah, I think so. And I think obviously there was a bit of pushback at first. And then the funny thing is, well, you know, she was threatening Wolsey and the Archbishop, "You will drop down dead if you carry on supporting this marriage." By 1529, they had both dropped down dead. And I think maybe thought, oh, maybe there's something in this. Maybe I actually.

• 35:05Kate Lister?

  Yes.

• 35:06Speaker 02

  And also, if you think about it, when she received the excommunication from the kings, okay, so when the king did eventually marry Anne Boleyn, they had an emergency discussion about, okay, maybe we weren't wrong with these prophecies. Perhaps we just misinterpreted them. Maybe he just won't be king in the eyes of God. So when the excommunication threat came in, thought, hang on, if he was excommunicated, he really wouldn't be king in the eyes of God. Another prophecy is coming true. So I think she just gradually started to believe it.

• 35:39Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 35:39Speaker 02

  Because you know how religious they were in this time? I don't think she would have outwardly tried to con the people, because how could she justify that to God?

• 35:47Kate Lister?

  Hmm, like she's, and she's kind of swept along with it, isn't she? And she's tangled up in forces much, much bigger than she is.

• 35:54Speaker 02

  Yeah. Oh, gosh, yeah. I think many times she got very scared. I think that's, there's proof in it that she did want to sort of quit the con at some point, because she actually burned her veil. Now, this is the holiest part of her vows as a nun. So to burn the veil, that means she wanted to stop everything, quit it all. Somehow Bocking talked her around and, surprise, surprise, turned the burned nun into a holy relic, saying, look, she was tempted by Satan again. Though she refused it, and now people are paying to succeed.

• 36:32Kate Lister?

  They're not going to let her carry on with this, though, are they? I mean, she's had, she's had a good old run, and she's got some, some amazing fans, a huge fan base. But clearly, you cannot keep marching around saying that the king is damned for all eternity. I mean, a bit quirky at first, bit of a novelty. We'll get her in, you can see what she's going to say, but they're not going to let that carry on.

• 36:55Speaker 02

  It is amazing that they let it carry on for as long as it did.

• 36:57Kate Lister?

  It really is.

• 36:58Speaker 02

  In the same way that we historians have sort of dismissed her and dismissed her as a crap bot, I think that that's what they were doing, thinking, oh, it's not really that important. But when they realized the impact she really was having, and at the point where she said, you know, "I've seen your seat in hell", they hauled her before the authorities. I think they tried to scare her at that point. And that's when she said, okay, I'm going to go away and have another prophecy. She said this twice, actually. So Archbishop Cranmer said, "You know when you said that you saw the king's seat in hell, and you think he's going to die? Can I have a bit more information on that?"

• 37:27Kate Lister?

  Are you quite sure about that?

• 37:28Speaker 02

  Yeah. And at which point she sort of kind of not backtracked, but said, oh, okay, bear with me a moment. I'm going, let me go away, have another prophecy, and I'll come back to you, you know, schedule in a meeting with the angels. And yes, so then that's when her manager started planting the seeds of sedition around the country and saying, okay, all the preachers, are you ready to preach against the king if we say so? So they just went too far. And rather than scare her into silence, it kind of ramped up their campaign against Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII. So they got her back in, at which point she crumbled, and she did confess everything was a hoax.

• 38:06Kate Lister?

  Oh, she confessed the whole lot? What did she, does her confession survive?

• 38:10Speaker 02

  It survives in the, so there's these various documents we wipe from, the Act of Attanda, which is parliamentary statute that allows a Tudor court to condemn a person to death who hasn't stood trial. I think the next person this was applied to was Thomas Cranmer. We also have the sermon that was preached against her. So because they couldn't then, when she'd confessed to it all, they couldn't just martyr her and kill her. Because she had so many fans, they had to discredit her. So they took her around the country on what I call the tour of shame. And she had, she had made to stand on a platform while a sermon was preached, telling the entire story. And all the terrible things that she did, all the way she misled people,

• 38:52Speaker 02

  deceived her fans, so that they would turn against her.

• 38:56Kate Lister?

  Wow. Oh, that's nasty.

• 38:58Speaker 02

  I know. But then you think about it, this, I try not to, there are so many modern parallels with our world today that are in this book. I try not to draw them, just in case someone wants to read it and have a complete Tudor escapism. But there is one part where I say, you know, if you think about it, this was the deplatforming that we have today, and the execution, the actual form of cancellation.

• 39:19Kate Lister?

  This is like when you see somebody on social media posting something like, "Yesterday, I said that such and such did such and such. I would like to recant my confession and apologize unreservedly." And you're looking at it going, lawyers, there were lawyers here.

• 39:33Speaker 02

  That's it. Yes. Yeah, it's a Tudor PR machine, like damage limitation. Yeah.

• 39:38Kate Lister?

  And how long were they wheeling her around the country, going, tell them, tell them, tell them it was all crap?

• 39:43Speaker 02

  It was only a matter of weeks. And you know what? I think they may have just left it there because it was quite effective. She was discredited. Everyone turned against her. Um, and oh, and all the managers so predictably threw her under the bus.

• 39:55Kate Lister?

  I bet they fucking did.

• 39:56Speaker 02

  You believed her. I'm like, that was our, our mistake.

• 40:00Kate Lister?

  We had no idea.

• 40:01Speaker 02

  Who saw that coming?

• 40:03Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 40:04Speaker 02

  But it's at this point, I think she realised, oh, they're not going to kill me. I'm not going to be martyred and have everlasting salvation. I'm now just going to have to suffer this terrible life again, being hated by everyone. So that's when she had another vision from the angels. Well, it kind of gets muddled at this point, which I think says a lot about her state of mind and the fear she was going through because she said, no, no, an angel came to me while I was in prison and said that I should pretend it was all a hoax because you're just not ready to hear it. The people are not ready to receive this message.

• 40:35Kate Lister?

  So she's fighting back a bit then?

• 40:37Speaker 02

  She starts fighting back. And I think, you know, the authorities probably thought, my goodness, this girl doesn't quit. Well.

• 40:44Kate Lister?

  She had an option there. She could have just, just gone and lived in, you know, quiet obscurity somewhere as, you know, the, the person who once spoke a load of crap. But she, she doesn't. And she must know what's on the line by doing this.

• 40:55Speaker 02

  I think she wanted to die.

• 40:57Kate Lister?

  Right.

• 40:58Speaker 02

  I really do. I think she wanted to be martyred.

• 41:00Kate Lister?

  Blazer glory time.

• 41:01Speaker 02

  It, it is. It's all about that. Again, that's, that was a very Tudor thing.

• 41:06Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 41:07Speaker 02

  I don't think we didn't want that today. Everyone.

• 41:09Kate Lister?

  Well, I don't know, you know, because sometimes I think about it and like your reputation is so important. Like, we often say things in the past, like, oh, reputation is everything. Reputation's everything today. And there's been lots of research done on shame as a social mechanism and how powerful that is. But to be shamed on that scale is, and one of the, a big precursor and a big indicator of suicide is shame, is like heaping that on to somebody. So I can just like, it is actually a very powerful motivator of like, rather than be hated by everybody and be completely discredited and have everyone say that you're talking absolute crap. I think that a lot of people actually would go, actually, no, blazer glory. That's, that's what we'll do. And I'll redeem myself that way.

• 41:50Speaker 02

  Yeah. No, no, I, I can understand that, especially that she probably had nothing to live for at that point.

• 41:56Kate Lister?

  Right, yeah.

• 41:57Speaker 02

  Would they have taken her back to the nunnery? I, no, I doubt it.

• 41:59Kate Lister?

  Good point. Yeah.

• 42:01Speaker 02

  What, if she'd have gone back to being a housemaid, who'd have had her?

• 42:06Kate Lister?

  I'll be back with Hayley and Elizabeth after this short break.

• 42:20Speaker 01

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• 42:49Kate Lister?

  Hello, Betwixters. I'm jumping in here because I have some very exciting news. Betwixt the Sheets has set up camp on YouTube. That's right. It took us a while, but we are there now. So if you are the kind of person who likes to see your podcasts as well as hear your podcasts, you can now go and find us right there. And the link is in the show notes. And please remember to like and subscribe because the people in charge of the money really do like that. Right, let's get on with it.

• 43:31Kate Lister?

  So she has this vision of like, actually, no, I was right all along. Then what happened?

• 43:36Speaker 02

  And then they said, my God, kill her. Long story short, kill her. And this is where they brought her in front of a group of the highest ranking people in the country. And the scenes were incredible. This is where she'd already been condemned to death and along with, thankfully, the, the men.

• 43:56Kate Lister?

  Balking, did he get, he's been nicked, is he?

• 43:58Speaker 02

  And also her publicist, Henry Gold, who had been the Archbishop of Canterbury's chaplain.

• 44:04Kate Lister?

  Right.

• 44:04Speaker 02

  He'd been spreading the prophecies. And, and also Richard Masser, the pastor of Oldington. So thankfully, justice prevails. They also went down with her. But yes, scenes in this court, everyone was so outraged by her story that they all started chanting, to the stake, to the stake. They wanted to see her burn. I'd like this anger against the power that this woman, this young girl dared to wield. Yeah. So, um, and then she was hung, drawn and headed.

• 44:36Kate Lister?

  Oh shit, they went for the full hanging, drawing quarter in. Wow. So that, so they must have got her on, was it treason charges they got her on?

• 44:43Speaker 02

  Yes, I think it was treason.

• 44:45Kate Lister?

  Walking around saying the king's going to die horribly and that he's.

• 44:49Speaker 02

  You don't actually go into the actual charge. They just, it was every, that's a really good point.

• 44:54Kate Lister?

  Just being loud and talking shit is enough.

• 44:57Speaker 02

  Talking. She was got on charges of talking, daring to speak.

• 45:01Kate Lister?

  So hang draw, wow. Okay. So where did that happen?

• 45:04Speaker 02

  So she was drawn from, and when drawn, I used to think that that was way back in the day, that the whole like splitting open. No, drawing is when they sort of put you on a pallet that's drawn through the streets by a horse, where everyone is goading you, spitting on you. Imagine like the crack of your bones on the card cobbles. It was horrible.

• 45:28Kate Lister?

  Yeah, really nasty.

• 45:30Speaker 02

  Yeah. So you were battered and bruised by the time you got to Tyvan, which she was then hung, but not to the point of blacking out, or potentially she didn't. If she did, she would have been slapped awake. So she could have been awake when they beheaded her.

• 45:46Kate Lister?

  What about the others, the, the men involved? Did they meet similar fate?

• 45:48Speaker 02

  Exactly the same. Yeah. So, and I do, it doesn't say, but I wonder if because of their ranking, usually it's the highest ranking goes first. So I don't know whether they would have been killed first and she would have had to watch them and witness it and have that fear sort of building. The, oh, it's absolutely disgusting. It's, you get kind of like headed when you have to write it out because you really want to understand what they went through, or rather.

• 46:11Kate Lister?

  Like the spectacle of that, of just how violent and how gory that would have been.

• 46:17Speaker 02

  Yeah. And it was a, you think about it, it's a warning to everyone else. This is what happens when you not just defy the king, but you speak against him. You try to con the King of England. This is what happens. But people actually turn up and everyone was so angry at being conned and scammed that they turned all their hatred towards who was being killed there at that point. So yeah, the baying wob was all, oh.

• 46:43Kate Lister?

  Do we know, was, was she, was she buried anywhere or just like chucked her in a pit?

• 46:46Speaker 02

  She had the classic head on a spike.

• 46:48Kate Lister?

  Head on a spike. Oh dear.

• 46:52Speaker 02

  Getting queasy just, just thinking about it. I need a sip of water. Yeah, it's, um.

• 46:55Kate Lister?

  And how old was she when that happened? Early twenties presumably?

• 46:59Speaker 02

  Yeah. So she was 22 when she met, oh, I've got a great historian, bad at maths.

• 47:05Kate Lister?

  All historians are bad at maths.

• 47:07Speaker 02

  Calculate for me. 22 when she met the king in 1528. And this was 1534.

• 47:15Kate Lister?

  Six years later, so 28?

• 47:18Speaker 02

  Yes. I'll just say yes.

• 47:20Kate Lister?

  All right. Let's hope, let's hope that we've got that one right because people love to write in if you can't do maths.

• 47:24Speaker 02

  Oh, well, don't come for me for, or you can come for me for the maths. I'm not a mathematician. It's fine.

• 47:29Kate Lister?

  All right. So twenties, she's a young woman.

• 47:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's a young woman. It's pretty horrific.

• 47:35Kate Lister?

  So there's a final question then. Like, what is, what is her legacy? Because you, you opened it by saying that I thought she was just a crackpot. And presumably you think that because that is generally how she's discussed within Tudor history.

• 47:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:49Kate Lister?

  Like, what's, what do you think her legacy was? Were people sad when she died? Did it take a while for people to try and revise? Has anyone tried to revise this history before?

• 47:59Speaker 02

  Yes. Well, she prophesized that Henry VIII's daughter, Princess Mary, would take the throne. And obviously that didn't happen. But then years later, 20 years later, was it? Again, the maths. When she did, I think it was Nicholas Sandel who tried to revive her and just say, well, actually, she was right because look, she has taken the throne.

• 48:18Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 48:18Speaker 02

  She was a prophet. And also because that worked because she prophesied against Anne Boleyn. So that played into all of that as well. But in terms of her legacy, I was going to say we should end on a high, but it's not really a positive one. So because she incited this rebellion in Catherine of Aragon, and because she put so much pressure on Anne's marriage that had to survive, I think there was no room for error. So when Anne did not birth the son and heir, which was a sign from God, they all thought, okay, maybe, maybe the nun's right. And it just, yeah, again, left no room for error. And when it came to wanting to get rid of Anne Boleyn, because they'd had this seven year battle with Catherine

• 49:00Speaker 02

  of Aragon that was incited by the nun, that's why I think they thought, okay, just off with her head. Let's just watch of her.

• 49:08Kate Lister?

  How would you like her to be remembered? Because there's a lot in this story. Like, is, is she a con woman? Is she a victim? Is she, was, maybe she was a prophetess. Maybe she believed it herself. Like, how would you like her to be remembered?

• 49:23Speaker 02

  Um, as a ballsy young woman. I think, no, I, I think, I don't like the idea of her being remembered as someone who was manipulated, but I think it's a good story to sort of show us what happened and, and how women really got the short end of the stick and were used and abused. I know that's not a revolutionary take. I know we're all coming.

• 49:46Kate Lister?

  That's what happened.

• 49:47Speaker 02

  But it's what happened. I don't think she was a crackpot. I think.

• 49:51Kate Lister?

  That's a good takeaway. Not a crackpot.

• 49:53Speaker 02

  No, let's end on that. She was not a crackpot. Um, I, I think she was a victim. I do. I think she was a victim herself, but a very ballsy one.

• 50:04Kate Lister?

  Hayley, you have been a revelation to talk to. Thank you so much. I knew nothing of this. And if people want to know more about you and your work, where can they find you?

• 50:12Speaker 02

  They can find me at hayleynolan.com. You can find me on social media at Hayley Nolan Historian. And you can get the book, which is notorious.

• 50:19Kate Lister?

  Go and get the book.

• 50:20Speaker 02

  Great Tudor hoax. Get the book.

• 50:22Kate Lister?

  Thank you so much. You have been marvelous.

• 50:25Speaker 02

  Oh, no, thank you. Thank you for letting me. Yep. Away. Ramble on.

• 50:29Kate Lister?

  It was a pleasure.

• 50:31Speaker 02

  No, it's, I am wilting. I'm just like.

• 50:34Kate Lister?

  Go and lie down in the fridge.

• 50:36Speaker 02

  Stick my face, yeah, in the ice cold freezer. I will do. Honestly, thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure.

• 50:46Kate Lister?

  Thank you for listening and thank you so much to Hayley for joining me. And if you like what you heard, don't forget to like, review and follow along wherever it is you get your podcasts. Coming up, we have episodes on Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton with history hit head honcho Dan Snow and the start of a new mini series exploring history's most dangerous women. If you'd like us to explore a subject or if you just wanted to say hello, then you can email us at [email protected]. This podcast was edited by Tim Arstall and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer is Freddy Chick. Join me again, Betwixt Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.