Richard Hunne - Aftermath

Aftermath

In 1515, as a result of this affair, Parliament debated whether to approve a bill to restore to Hunne's children the property that had been forfeited when their father was found, posthumously, guilty of heresy. The House of Commons petitioned Henry VIII to reform the law on mortuary fees and an attempt was made to extend laws against benefit of clergy. None of the proposed laws was passed.

Foxe recounted Hunne's case as evidence of the unfairness and unaccountability of English ecclesiastical courts on the eve of the Reformation. It also presented Hunne as a martyr and one of the forerunners of the Protestantism that would soon enter England in the wake of Martin Luther's protest. An anonymous account, The enquirie and verdite of the quest panneld of the death of Richard Hune which was founde hanged in Lolars tower, published in 1537 suggests that its author also saw parallels between Hunne's case and the Henrician Reformation's attempt to bring ecclesiastical courts under state control.