Later on, also, was the case of Anne Burnell (Sharpe, i. 552):—
“The strain which the continuation of the war and the threatened renewal of a Spanish invasion imposed upon the inhabitants of London at large was a great one, and appears to have affected the mind of a weak and hysterical woman, Anne Burnell. She gave out that she was a daughter of the King of Spain, and that the arms of England and Spain were to be seen, like stigmata, upon her back, as was vouched for by her servant, Alice Digges. After medical examination, which proved her statement to be ‘false and proceedinge of some lewde and imposterouse pretence,’ she and her maid were ordered to be whipt,—‘ther backes only beeinge layd bare,’—at the cart’s tail through the City on a market day, ‘with a note in writinge uppon the hinder part of their heades shewinge the cawse of their saide punishmente.’”
Again, there was the case of William Geffery and John Moore. These two unfortunate creatures were perfectly mad, and ought to have been locked up in Bethlehem. Said William Geffery to the other lunatic, “Christ is not in Heaven, John. He is on earth and like unto us.” “He is,” John replied, “and thou thyself, William Geffery, art none other than Christ.” “That,” said William, “is perfectly correct.” They therefore clapped John Moore in Bethlehem and William Geffery in the Marshalsea. This should have been enough. But it was not the fashion of the time ever to have enough of punishing. They therefore tied Geffery to the cart tail and flogged him all the way from the Marshalsea to Bethlehem, a matter of two miles. At the gate of Bethlehem the cart was stopped. Then John Moore was brought out, and Geffery was flogged again until he confessed his error and acknowledged that Christ was in Heaven and that he himself was nothing but a sinful man. They then stripped John Moore and tied him to the cart tail; at first he took the punishment smiling, but before going an arrow’s shot he begged them to stop, and confessed that he was wrong. So they both went back: John Moore to Bethlehem and William Geffery to the Marshalsea, and we hear no more of them.
The Anabaptists were another perverse people who met with no mercy. On 3rd April 1575 there was found a congregation of Anabaptists in a house outside Aldgate Bars. Twenty-seven in all were arrested. On the 15th of May four of them, bearing faggots to show that they deserved death, recanted at Paul’s Cross; on 22nd July two of them were burned at Smithfield, “who died in great horror, with roaring and crying.” Their recantation shows the doctrines they held.