Nicholas Shaxton - Resignation and Heresy Charge

Resignation and Heresy Charge

Shaxton resigned his bishopric in 1539 because he opposed the King's Six Articles, for which he was imprisoned. He was one of the bishops who opposed the articles in parliament, till the king, as one of the lords present remarked, ‘confounded them all with God's learning.’ When the act was passed he and Latimer resigned their bishoprics. He was desired, when he gave in his resignation, to keep it secret; but it soon became known, and he wrote to ask Cromwell whether he should dress like a priest or like a bishop. Early in July he was seen in company with the archbishop of Canterbury in a priest's gown. A congé d'élire was issued for Salisbury on the 7th. Shaxton was committed to the custody of John Clerk. On 9 November he wrote from his confinement at Chew desiring liberty and a pension; he and Latimer were both pensioned.

In the spring of 1540 he, like Latimer, had the benefit of the general pardon, but was released only with a prohibition from preaching or coming near London or either of the universities, or returning to his former diocese. For some years he lived in obscurity. He held a parochial charge as curate at Hadleigh in Suffolk, and in the spring of 1546 was summoned to London to answer for maintaining false doctrine on the sacrament. He said when he left that he should either have to burn or to forsake the truth, and on 18 June he, with Anne Askew and two others, was arraigned for heresy at the Guildhall. All four were condemned to execution; but the king sent Bishops Edmund Bonner and Nicholas Heath, and his chaplains, Dr. Robinson and Dr. Redman, to confer with Shaxton and his fellow prisoner, Nicholas White, and they succeeded in persuading both of them to repudiate their heresy.

On 9 July Shaxton signed a recantation in thirteen articles, which was published at the time with a prefatory epistle to Henry VIII, acknowledging the king's mercy to him in his old age. He was then sent to Anne Askew to urge her to do likewise; but Bonner had already tried in vain to persuade her, and according to John Foxe in his Acts and Monuments she told Shaxton it would have been better for him that he had never been born. He was appointed to preach the sermon at her burning on 16 July. On Sunday, 1 August he preached at Paul's Cross, declaring how he fell into erroneous opinion, and urged his hearers to beware of heretical books.

In September he prevailed on John Taylor, who had been suspected of similar heresies, to sign the same articles as he had done. At his request the king gave him the mastership of St. Giles's Hospital at Norwich.