SOURCE: Macek, Ellen. “The Emergence of a Feminine Spirituality in The Book of Martyrs. Sixteenth Century Journal 19, no. 1 (spring 1988): 63-80.

In the following essay, originally presented in 1984, Macek examines the role of female participants in the English Reformation.

God forbyd that I shoulde loose the lyfe eternall for this carnal and short lyfe. I wyl never turne from my heavenly husband, to my earthly husband: from the felowship of angels, to mortal chyldren: And if my husband and chyldren be faithfull, then am I theirs. God is my father, God is my mother, God is my sister, my brother, my kinsman, God is my frend most faithfull.¹

So reads the testimony of a simple housewife during the reign of Mary Tudor. Her story appears in one of the two most popular books of the late Tudor period—John Foxe's Acts and Monuments. This work, commonly known as The...