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Elizabeth Barton c.1506–34

c.1506–34

Mark Rathbone investigates Elizabeth Barton’s rise to fame and the events that led to her execution for high treason

Source A An engraving showing Elizabeth Barton having one of her ‘trances’

Elizabeth Barton, of Kent, fell in some trances (it seems they were hysterical fits), and spake such things as made those about her think she was inspired of God. The parson of the parish, Masters, hoping to draw advantages from this, gave Archbishop Warham notice of it, who ordered him to observe her carefully, and bring him an account of what should follow. But she had forgot all that she said in her fits when they were over; yet the priest would not let her go so, but persuaded her that she was inspired, and taught her so to counterfeit those trances that she became very ready at it. The matter was much noised about, and the priest intended to raise the credit of an image of the Blessed Virgin’s that was in his church, that so pilgrimages and offerings might be made to it by her means.

From The History of the Reformation of the Church of England by Bishop Gilbert Burnet, 1679

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Advances in medicine in the First World War

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The end of the Russian Civil War

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