Timeline April 1534

Events in April 1534 2

• 1506 – 1534 Elizabeth Barton The Holy Maid of Kent English Catholic nun and prophetess known as the Holy Maid of Kent. A servant girl from Aldington in Kent, she began experiencing visions and trances during a severe illness in 1525 and was declared miraculously cured at a local chapel. Archbishop Warham found her orthodox and she entered a Benedictine convent in Canterbury, where she became a celebrity visited by pilgrims from across England. She met Cardinal Wolsey, Henry VIII and corresponded with Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher. When she began prophesying that Henry would die if he divorced Catherine of Aragon and married Anne Boleyn, she became a threat to the Crown. She was publicly denounced, attainted by Parliament and hanged at Tyburn in 1534 at the age of 28 — the first woman whose head was displayed on London Bridge.
• 1534 Execution at Tyburn Dragged behind a horse through London's streets to the gallows at Tyburn, where she was hanged at the age of 28. She was then beheaded and her head boiled and placed on a spike on London Bridge — the first and only woman to suffer that fate. Five of her associates, including Edward Bocking, were executed alongside her. Her body was buried in the Grey Friars churchyard in Newgate Street.