Editing Robert Barnes (martyr)

{{short description|16th century martyr in the English Reformation}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
[[File:Joseph Martin Kronheim - Foxe's Book of Martyrs Plate IV - Barnes and his Fellow-Prisoners Seeking Forgiveness.jpg|thumb|250px|"Barnes and his Fellow-Prisoners Seeking Forgiveness", from an 1887 edition of ''[[Foxe's Book of Martyrs]]'', illustrated by Kronheim.]]
'''Robert Barnes''' ({{Circa|1495}} – 30 July 1540) was an [[England|English]] [[English Reformation|reformer]] and [[martyr]].

==Life==
Barnes was born in [[King's Lynn]], [[Norfolk]] in 1495,<ref name="freeman">{{cite book |last=Ryrie |first=Alec |date=2007 |editor-last1=Freeman |editor-last2=Mayer |editor-first1=Thomas S. |editor-first2=Thomas F. |title=Martyrs and martyrdom in England, c.1400-1700|publisher=Boydell Press|pages=144–165|chapter=Chapter 6: 'A saynt in the deuils name': Heroes and Villains in the Martyrdom of Robert Barnes| isbn=978-1-84383-290-4}}</ref> and was educated at [[Cambridge]], where he was an [[Augustinians|Augustinian]] [[Roman Catholic priest|priest]] of the [[Austin Friary, Cambridge|Austin Friars]]. Sometime after 1514 he was sent to study in [[Leuven]]. Barnes returned to Cambridge in the early 1520s, where he graduated [[Doctor of Divinity]] in 1523, and, soon after, was made Prior of his Cambridge convent.

[[John Foxe]] says that Barnes was one of the Cambridge men who gathered at the [[White Horse Tavern, Cambridge|White Horse Tavern]] for [[Bible]]-reading and [[theology|theological]] discussion in the early 1530s. At the encouragement of [[Thomas Bilney]], Barnes preached at the [[Christmas Day]] [[Midnight Mass]] in 1525 at [[St Edward King and Martyr, Cambridge|St Edward's Church]] in Cambridge. Barnes' sermon, although against clerical pomp and ecclesiastical abuses, was neither particularly unorthodox nor surprising except it called out [[Cardinal Wolsey]] for worldliness.<ref name=parker>{{cite journal |last1=Parker |first1=Douglas H. |title=Critical Edition of Robert Barnes's A Supplication Vnto the Most Gracyous Prince Kynge Henry The. VIIJ. 1534 |date=31 January 2007 |doi=10.3138/9781442687776-002}}</ref> However, after seeing a churchwarden whose civil suit resulted in the imprisonment of a local man, Fr. Barnes departed from his prepared text to denounce [[lawsuit]]s by one Christian against another - inside the parish church of Cambridge University's College of Lawyers. At a time when [[King Henry VIII]] and [[Thomas Wolsey|Cardinal Wolsey]] were attempting to stop the [[smuggling]] of [[Martin Luther]]'s books into England from the Continent, Barnes' remarks immediately drew suspicion.<ref name=Maas>[https://books.google.com/books?id=M_aARwxw7lkC&dq=Robert+Barnes+%28martyr%29&pg=PA3 Maas, Korey. ''The Reformation and Robert Barnes: History, Theology and Polemic in Early Modern England'', Boydell & Brewer, 2010] {{ISBN|9781843835349}}</ref>

[[File:History of the great reformation in Europe in the times of Luther and Calvin.. (1870) (14763424424).jpg|thumb|left|Barnes before Cardinal Wolsey, 1870 illustration]]

As a result, in 1526 Barnes was brought before the vice-chancellor for preaching an anti-clerical [[sermon]] on Christmas Eve based on a ''[[postil]]'' of [[Martin Luther]],<ref>{{cite journal |last1=D'Alton |first1=Craig W. |title=The Suppression of Lutheran Heretics in England, 1526–1529 |journal=The Journal of Ecclesiastical History |date=April 2003 |volume=54 |issue=2 |pages=228–253 |doi=10.1017/S0022046902005675}}</ref> and was subsequently examined by Cardinal Wolsey's commission that included four bishops. He was ordered to [[abjure]] his sermon or be burnt; and, after choosing the former, carried faggots in a public procession in London.<ref name=parker/>

He was then committed to the [[Fleet prison]] for six month, but afterwards conditionally released to the [[Austin Friars, London|Austin Friary]] in [[London]]. Although under [[house arrest]] in the Friary, Barnes was allowed visitors. It was subsequently discovered that while incarcerated there, Barnes was secretly a distributor of copies of [[William Tyndale]]'s [[Tyndale Bible|New Testament]] with its novel translation choices and illegal Lutheran commentary.<ref name=Maas/>

After arranging a diversion involving a faked suicide attempt which had authorities searching a river for seven days,<ref name=parker/> he escaped in disguise to [[Antwerp]] in 1528, and also visited [[Wittenberg]], where he became good friends with [[Martin Luther]].<ref name="ODNB">{{Cite ODNB|id=1472|title=Barnes, Robert}}</ref> While at Wittenberg in the summer of 1531, Barnes was commissioned to ascertain the opinion of Luther and other continental divines on the divorce proceedings between Henry VIII and [[Catherine of Aragon]]. That year he also published the first edition of ''A Supplication'', which essentially outlined [[Lutheran theology]] in an appeal to Henry VIII. [[Stephen Vaughan (merchant)|Stephen Vaughan]], an agent of [[Thomas Cromwell]] in the [[Low Countries]] and an advanced reformer, came across a copy of Barnes's work and was so impressed by his description of Lutheran [[political philosophy]] that he pleaded with Cromwell to invite the exile home.<ref name= "ODNB" />

In late 1531 Barnes returned to England, becoming one of the chief intermediaries between the English Court and the [[Lutheranism|Lutheran]] [[List of states in the Holy Roman Empire|German States]], and he spent the next several years going between England and Germany. He was a vocal defender of King Henry's policy of [[Caesaropapism]], in the vain hope that the King would choose Lutheranism for the theology of the [[Church of England]]. In 1539 Barnes was employed in negotiating with [[William, Duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg]] for King Henry's marriage to [[Anne of Cleves]]. The policy was Cromwell's, but [[Henry VIII of England|Henry VIII]] had already in 1538 refused to embrace [[Lutheranism]], and the statute of [[Six Articles (1539)|Six Articles]], followed by the immediate [[annulment]] of the King's marriage to Anne of Cleves in 1540, ultimately brought Cromwell and all other agents of his policies to ruin.

A denunciation by Barnes of Bishop [[Stephen Gardiner]] in a sermon at [[St Paul's Cross]] launched a battle to the death between the Crypto-Lutheran, [[Crypto-Calvinist]], and [[Crypto-Catholic]] courtiers in King Henry's council, which raged during the spring of 1540. Barnes was forced to apologise and recant; and Bishop Gardiner delivered a series of counter-sermons at St Paul's Cross. But a month later Cromwell was made [[earl of Essex]], Gardiner's friend, [[Richard Sampson|Bishop Sampson]], was sent to the [[Tower of London|Tower]], and Barnes openly reverted to Lutheranism, but it proved a delusive victory. In July, however, Cromwell was [[attainder|attainted]], the marriage between the King and Anne of Cleves was [[annulment|annulled]] and Barnes was attainted and convicted of heresy and sentenced to [[execution by burning]].

On [[30 July]], 1540, Barnes and five other religious [[dissidents]] were dragged by the feet, attached to  wooden panels called [[hurdles]], over the streets from the [[Tower of London]] to [[Smithfield, London|Smithfield]], by horses, for execution. Each hurdle carried both a condemned Lutheran pastor and a condemned Catholic priest.

The two fellow Lutherans pastors; William Jerome and [[Thomas Gerrard]], were, like Barnes, [[burnt at the stake]] for heresy under the [[Six Articles (1539)|Six Articles]]. Meanwhile, three [[Roman Catholic priest]]s: Fr .[[Thomas Abel (martyr)|Thomas Abel]], Fr. [[Richard Fetherstone]] and Barnes' companion on the hurdle, Fr. [[Edward Powell (martyr)|Edward Powell]], were [[hanged, drawn, and quartered]], officially for [[high treason in the United Kingdom|high treason]], but in reality for rejecting both the King's title as [[Supreme Head of the Church of England]] and [[Caesaropapism|State control over the Church]].

==Legacy==
Both Catholics and Lutherans throughout [[Europe]] were shocked and horrified by the executions. Some historians have concluded that Barnes was crucial in having the English Protestants and Catholics alike understand the [[English Reformation|Reformation]] around them.<ref name="freeman"/> 

The feast day of Rev. Barnes and his two companions is commemorated every year on the [[Calendar of saints (Lutheran)|Lutheran Calendar of Saints]].

The three Catholic priests executed with Barnes were among the fifty-four [[English Catholic Martyrs]] who were [[Beatification|Beatified]] by [[Pope Leo XIII]] on [[29 December]], 1886.

==Literature==
* Shortly after their executions, a dialogue in verse was published, ''The Metynge of Doctor Barnes and Dr. Powell at Paradise Gate and of theyre communicacion bothe drawen to Smithfylde fro the Towar'' (London, 1540), in the [[British Museum]]. 
* [[Martin Luther]] published Barnes' confession after writing a preface of his own as ''Bekenntnis des Glaubens'' (1540).
* Robert Barnes also appears in ''[[The Mirror & the Light]]'', by [[Hilary Mantel]].

==See also==
*[[St Edward's Passage]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
* {{Cite EB1911|wstitle= Barnes, Robert | volume= 3 |last1= Pollard |first1= Albert Frederick |author1-link= Albert Pollard | page = 413 |short=1}}
*McGoldrick, James Edward (1979). ''Luther's English Connection: the Reformation Thought of Robert Barnes and [of] William Tyndale''. Northwestern Publishing House. {{ISBN|0-8100-0070-9}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Barnes, Robert}}
[[Category:1495 births]]
[[Category:1540 deaths]]
[[Category:Protestant Reformers]]
[[Category:Doctors of Divinity]]
[[Category:English Lutheran martyrs]]
[[Category:People celebrated in the Lutheran liturgical calendar]]
[[Category:People executed for heresy]]
[[Category:Executed British people]]
[[Category:People executed under Henry VIII]]
[[Category:16th-century Protestant martyrs]]
[[Category:People from King's Lynn]]
[[Category:16th-century English people]]
[[Category:People executed by the Kingdom of England by burning]]
[[Category:Protestant martyrs of England]]