ABSTRACT
The systematic coercion, torture and execution of the Carthusians of the London Charterhouse and of other English Charterhouses by Henry VIII between 1535 and 1537 had been the talk of Europe. The King and his chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, had embarked on this programme of brutal intimidation in an effort to force the Carthusians to take the oath. Twenty years later their cases were once again capturing the imagination and rekindling fresh outrage with the publication of an eyewitness account by one of the monks of the London Charterhouse who had survived to tell the tale. Maurice Chauncy’s Historia aliquot nostri saeculi martyrum printed in 1550 made compelling reading and had become a best-seller throughout the Continent.5 Although Chauncy’s book contained some information which the Cardinal had asked for, and there was more available in other eyewitness accounts and in ambassadors’ letters and reports compiled at the time, it was only on Mary Tudor’s accession to the English throne that many of the official court records and papers relating to the cases would have become easily accessible to the Church. Pole appears to have complied swiftly with the request because four months later, in May 1555, a broadsheet dedicated to the Cardinal of Compostela and containing all the information requested in the letter was published in Rome. The broadsheet is the subject of this book.
