https://shows.acast.com/between-the-stools/episodes/magdalene-sunday
Welcome to our Magdalene Sunday of 2023 when we will honour – with and without a ‘u’ – three special women who embodied the spirit of Magdalene. I believe that Mary M is not a redeemed prostitute as the Catholic church pedalled for many years, but Jesus’ No 2, who best understood and embodied his message. Her surname means ‘tower’ or ‘enlightened one’ – it’s a title of honour.
I would go further and say that despite an evangelical upbringing, I’ve come to see Mary as divine, or at least the human embodiment of the divine feminine, along with Jesus’ mother, the other Mary. However, I differ from some who elevate Magdalene in that I don’t see her as Jesus’ partner.
You can read more about my Magdalene thoughts here.
WONDER WOMEN: A Sermon For Magdalene Day 2020
In previous Magdalene services, I’ve compared Mary M to Wonder Woman – yes I did eventually see the second film, 1984, which didn’t go where I expected although it did take a much needed swipe at capitalism; the next year, my late Mum was the speaker for Magdalene Sunday, since it coincided with her 70th; and last year, Diana, Princess of Wales was our focus – in the month of what would’ve been her 61st birthday. I see Diana a very human manifestation of divine feminine.
I shared before – most recently at Easter – about my belief that one can be a real human and embody the divine, and have allegorical and what director Shekhar Kapur calls ‘operatic’ meaning in one’s life, even consciously. He saw ‘operatic’ meaning in the subject of his Elizabeth films, whom we’ll discuss in September close to her birthday.
Tonight, I wish to turn to her era, but before her reign.
Our first woman of the half hour is Elizabeth’s mother, whom we spent some time with during Lent and Easter. The second is a woman who was meant to stop Elizabeth’s half sister from reaching the throne. The third woman, who I’ve not talked about yet, wasn’t interested in a game of thrones at all.
PRAYER
There is something that unites these three women, other than their gender, country and time: their death. All three were executed, and all arguably were martyrs. I believe them to be. When researching this, the manner of their deaths and their sufferings before came much to the fore. I make clear that I do not wish to focus on this. This is a spiritual community, not a gore fest. I see no merit in wallowing in such details, which are distressing, and relegate their lives and achievements to an unpleasant end. It is what they stood for which interests me. Why did they die? Why were they each seen as a threat? I do not see their endings as a failure or loss – it rather says more about who gave the orders (never exculpating those who carry them out). I believe that we all, on a soul level, must choose from a small number of exit strategies: these three, living in violent and tyrannical times, left Earth via the orders of the same family – the Tudors.
Each of tonight’s women feature in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, a catalogue of Christian sufferings compiled by one John Foxe in the 16th C. Its language is as colourful as its monochrome woodcut illustrations. I borrowed a copy published in Chicago by the Moody Press. Its date is unrecorded – it misses off the usual bibliographic information – but was purchased in the mid 1960s. Its title is “Foxe’s Christian Martyrs of the World” – not the original – and Anne Boleyn, keenly recorded by Foxe, does not have an entry. The jacket flaps tell us that this unpleasant read is necessary to remind us that in renewed times of persecution and “terrors at the hands of Satan-driven men”, we may have to face what our forebears did. This injunction repeatedly uses the phrase “shall we not…” refracting a famous speech of a modern martyr who we’re thinking on in November.
Thus the author of the blurb of this edition draws the reader in personally with a challenge, ending with the words “alarm call.” I am alarmed by all the above, and felt uneasy with this volume. There are few words about many saints – saints of the reformed, not Catholic sense – although of course, Catholics have many saints, in both senses, themselves. I just want to honour those especially who in the same era suffered on the other side. The entry on each person tells us of how their bodies wore out in this world, but little to nought of what they were martyred for.
This is an ideologically abridged version, as I’ve found sections elsewhere that are missing here. Occasionally, there are brave quotes of those flouting the flames, refusing to change their faith under the ultimate pressure. In contrast to the hysterical heretics at the start of Shekhar Kapur’s film Elizabeth, the martyrs which Foxe records prayed publicly before their execution in a firm, clear voice. When his impending doom was described to him – as I shall not be doing – a Suffolk man called Kerby said that any who witnessed his departure would say “‘There standeth a Christian solider in the fire’: for I know that fire and water, sword and all other things, are in the hands of God, and He will suffer no more to be laid upon me than He will give me strength to bear.”
Why didn’t Moody Press put that on the back of the dust jacket?
Our first woman is someone that I’ve touched on from February, which was when she died. This month of July is when she reigned – for just nine days. Jane Grey might easily be relegated to a footnote of English history, a pub quiz question. We learn little of her via Foxe, who focusses more on the woman (whom we thought of in March) who had her executed. Foxe’s Lady Jane is like the traditional Virgin Mary: mild, obedient, good. She takes the throne because she’s asked to; she gives it up for the same. She’s womanly enough to faint when greatness is thrust upon her. At the scaffold she states the wrongness of taking what was Mary’s. She shows those British traits of acceptance and lack of emotion. And she would not turn to Catholicism (which I doubt would have saved her, since she was convicted of usurping the throne). Thus, according to Foxe (and his unnamed editors of Illinois), she died a good death.
Recent historians have made out Jane to be an unfortunate pawn; a few have attempted a feminist revision of her short life. Modern documentaries – a media I struggle with – have both stylised repeating tableaux of murky menacing throne grabbing lords, and serious historians sitting begloved in archives, wrangling over Edward VI’s teenage handwriting. For me, neither approach is convincing or satisfying; and I’m not concerned with the terms of his device of succession and whether Jane was a traitorous usurper or deposed legitimate claimant.
I find the near death questioning of Jane’s faith interesting – it is similar in content to the answers of our last lady. Jane begins by seemingly quoting back a catechism, but then there is a question that although predictable, required Jane to show her own religious reasoning. Teenage Jane had theological logic: how can Christ as God have truly died for us in a once for all in sacrificial atonement if he had two bodies – one on the cross and another to be continually eaten during communion? Instead of converting to the Romish way, Jane exhorts her questioner to be moved by the Holy Spirit to hers, or face damnation. This tableau inspired a painting: Jane was more than a tragic failed footnote of history to 18th C artist John Ogborne: she was a Protestant martyr.
I wish to turn again to that maligned medium – feature film – which I champion, along with fiction. Documentary and academic tomes aren’t automatically or even generally greater forms of truth, as I have said before. I’m interested in Lady Jane’s portrayal in a movie with Helena Bonham Carter in the title role. What was this saying about our world and hopes to change it?
In this film, the arranged marriage between Guildford Dudley and Lady Jane is a love story, and this pair courageously plan to change England and beyond. There is a memorable glass smashing scene where the newlyweds state their hopes for a more equal world, punctuated by dropping a goblet for each point of their manifesto. Guildford has understanding of the world outside their privileged cocoons; and whether we think that the real brother of Lord Robert (who would become Queen Elizabeth’s favourite) did, the point is that this film shows him as having this awareness to help awaken his bride. They both have a deep sense of justice, and want to use the positions thrust upon them to fight for fairness.
It could be said of them, as was of biblical queen Esther: “You have come to royal position for such a time as this”. Esther 4:14
The film was premiered in 1986, the year before the great Harmonic Convergence, a long prophesied end to the hellish cycles punctuated by a peace summit to bring in the new age. It coincided with He-Man and She-Ra – another duo who fight for justice in a seemingly innocuous TV show which alerts to deeper truths. I believe that in that decade of heightened capitalism and materialism, Cold War (where we again were encouraged to demonise rival superpower Russia), where leadership took away more civil rights and made greater divisions between rich and poor, the different and those approved of, here came a film based on history but which was a vehicle to challenge those things in our time as much as the 1550s.
What moves me is that a 1980s film wanted to say this of Jane Grey and her husband Guildford (who was potentially a pawn as much as she) and to use that couple to speak that vital gospel.
Our second lady of the night is linked in two ways: she has also been portrayed on screen by Helena BC – this time in 2003 – and there is a possible understanding of her relationship as a pairing which challenged the status quo and brought about change. I’m reluctant to call Henry VIII a twin flame but I do see a link to a modern Henry, also red haired and the royal second son who married someone outside of usual expectation and had to fight for that relationship. The parallels between Prince Harry and Meghan Markle might be clearer with his great great uncle David/Edward VIII (his actual name was different from his regnant title) and Wallis Simpson. I have heard spiritual teachers speak of Meghan and Harry as twin flames with an important role, carrying on the reforming work of Harry’s mother. I can also link via the racism that both Meghan and tonight’s second subject experienced; the latter was vilified for having darker skin.
I again refer to Queen Anne Boleyn; whatever her consort embodied (clue, not Jesus), I and others have seen in her the divine feminine redolent of She Whom We Honour Today. I even wondered if Anne was a reincarnation of that divine. It seems that she was joined with someone who was the very aberration of divinity, but that his vile ego was used to create what New Agers would call a new timeline. However, as I further understand the difference between Protestant and Dissent, I cannot now say that I feel God used Henry VIII, and I reject the church/state he created. I am thinking of the significance as once again, Britain is cast adrift from the rest of Europe, and the comments that French writer Vercors made in the 1960s about Anne Boleyn and her influence on this nation to continue to stand alone.
(I said more on Anne Boleyn during Easter and at her last anniversary).
During Lent, I spoke of the Bible in one’s own language as being key to Anne Boleyn’s mission, and to another, whom we would think of today: our third lady.
Anne Askew, like John Foxe, was born in Lincolnshire – I feel a pilgrimage coming on. He was her contemporary, but reports of Anne Askew’s birth year vary; they seem to be born within 5 years of one another. Anne’s story recalls Bristolian Dorothy Hazzard in the next century (more sermon fodder) whose religious convictions also led her to leave her conservative husband for faith spreading. For Anne, Bible reading was freedom. It’s perhaps the most exciting part of evangelical teaching – although that word has changed use since the 16th century and non-catholic labels are often misapplied by outsiders, and so I must be careful of that myself.
For Anne Askew, being able to read the Bible was a great leveller. She travelled to London and participated in Bible studies with men and women and those of different ‘classes’, freeing her from the strictures that the establishment placed on everyone. Perhaps it’s not surprising that the establishment disliked this freedom. It took away their hegemony. Priests – even post reformation ones – no longer had all the secret knowledge of what the Bible contains and sole power to dispense it. ‘Ordinary’ folk were able to share and debate its words – not just be told what it says. Latin was the language of conquering elitists, which is why I dislike it and won’t use it (relevant to our Christmas service); it hitherto had been the only translation of the Bible.
To translate the Bible into one’s native tongue had been a capital offence for centuries: William Wycliffe died for it; and being caught with a copy was dangerous to reformation Germans too.
Then in 1538, Henry VIII decreed that every parish should have one, known as the English Bible – the first ‘authorised’ version in that language (I’ve heard that the version of that title in the next century was not truly authorised, but note that it was again issued in the name of the king). Having the tome placed in churches meant that it was accessible to all and that laity read it and discussed it in groups (according to Karen Lindsey) whilst priests had to stand by. That five years on Henry suddenly created it an offence for women and men below a certain rank to read their holy book tells us as much about him and his true feelings on reform as it does about the capricious and unjust nature of law.
Anne Askew had been among those of the new religion who had gathered her household, including servants, round her and as today’s evangelicals would put it, ‘opened God’s word’. When confined to bear children, she carried on teaching the servants who attended her. When the Bible ban came in, Anne complied, because she didn’t actually read the Bible; she’d memorised large sections and so just recited instead – to other people.
Anne allegedly learned of the new learning via her Cambridge educated brothers who were kidnapped during the Pilgrimage of Grace – a Catholic uprising against Henry. This, it’s said, cemented her view of the old way, but she was expected to marry a local who still upheld it. He disliked Anne’s Bible teaching and was advised to send her away, in the hope that Anne would cease this unwomanly behaviour, but it actually set her free. Her husband and his advisors didn’t know that the Bible says, in Paul’s words, that if an unbelieving spouse of either sex separates from you, that you are no longer bound by that marriage (1 Corinthians 7:15). I’d add that this section is clearly headed “I, not the Lord, say”, thus being Paul’s advice not God’s law, but it was scripture enough for Anne to feel vindicated and released. She reverted to her birth surname of Askew and moved in with her brother and then to London to petition for a divorce, taking lodgings in the Inns of Court (the legal district) where she was introduced to sympathisers of the New Learning. People who spread this by teaching were known as Gospellers; Anne earned the adjective ‘fair’ allegedly for being female, nice looking and genteel. I find that disappointingly point-missing: one’s looks are irrelevant to the Gospel, and the capital’s taverns and churchyards apparently seethed with groups that didn’t recognize rank and gender as dividers.
I think this is why the conservative faction panicked so. It wasn’t their commitment to the Roman way but to their own power, as Anne ably and daringly pointed out to the bishop of Winchester. Stephen Gardiner had enjoyed new wealth of dissolved monastic lands; he’d upheld Henry’s claim to being the head of the English church (thus surviving, unlike More and Fisher), but still wanted suppression of the protestant populace. He was keen to move on Henry’s sixth wife, Catherine Parr, another Protestant reformer, perhaps (guesses Lindsey) to gain favour for having influenced Mrs Tudor #7. It seems that Anne’s fate was based on this larger political move. Surely Anne Askew, who became famous on the London New Learning scene, would have associations with Queen Catherine and her set? Anne was tortured after being condemned, which upset even the Tower’s constable, (odd that even torturers have a code of honour) but this unprecedented act appears to have been for the purpose of bringing the Queen’s downfall, as Anne was asked to name those of her ‘sect’. Anne did not supply the information wished for.
Anne had wittily and cleverly handled the first round of trial, where many supporters were present. She knew the Bible better than her questioners and frustrated them by using their sexism against them. As a poor woman, how could she expound the Bible before so many learned men? They’d wanted to draw her out on transubstantiation, which oddly hung on as orthodox belief. Henry’s Acts (in both senses) show that it was some of his wives who were protestant; and that not only did he hang on to Catholic tenets, but that he suppressed all believers who didn’t uphold the golden rule of his religion: that he was at the top of the pyramid and controlled everything.
When she was arrested again the next year – 1546 – Anne held forth: the Lord’s statement that he is the Door did not make him present in every portal, so surely her detractors realised that his statement “I am The Bread/Vine” was likewise metaphorical? Evangelicals are oft critiqued for being too literalist and not understanding allegory, but Anne, like Jane Grey, showed that the New Learning can discern; for them, inappropriately verbatim renderings were the province of Catholics.
My own view on the bread and wine is less fussed either way, but I think that it is the hegemony of the magic in the ritual – the incantation ‘hocus pocus’ is apparently a corruption of the Latin for ‘here is my body’ – that the traditional catholics were defending.
Anne left us an account of herself which was posthumously published in Germany; that so little of that is in the Moody Foxe volume (and I’ve yet been unable to read it elsewhere) shows that we are being influenced second hand. Once again, academia hopes to make the masses pass through them to gain knowledge. The Bible in English is much like today’s internet – it allows people to know and discuss things which are hitherto hidden. Although I’m unsure if having the Bible in English heightened literacy, there is the potential that being able to read the Bible allows you to read anything, and also that much can be learned through hearing and memory. However, it is the assimilation and inquiry which matters most.
These women knew that the true Gospel transcends our earthly status and categories; it is egalitarian and open to all. Jesus’ and Magdalene’s message is not about heterodoxy but a life changing encounter that is about outward signs of inner workings and a relationship with the living God, not pleasing a tyrant ruler and his ambitious lackeys, who were the true ‘extremists’.
There’s sad irony that Anne Askew had admired Henry as bringer of the True Faith, had hoped for his support in divorcing unsuitable spouses, and yet it was he (via horrible men I’ll not honour by naming) who had her tried and executed.
I see that both Annes were part of a marriage split that led to heresy charges but advanced protestant faith. We might see their advances as monkeys on a greasy pole, slipping more than they climbed, but progress is often like that – especially when portrayed by their detractors. Like Magdalene, their messages continued underground, waiting to shoot again. Under Mary, and in a different way, Elizabeth, the New Learning was suppressed, but people continued to gather whether legal or safe and by the end of the next century, evangelicals were officially free to meet openly. Catholics had to wait longer, but emancipation came, as it always does and will again.
Thank you for joining me
Next time, we meet on August 20th (same time) for “A Morbid Taste For Bones” – which won’t be morbid at all, but involve a sleuthing monk and a creatively exhumed king.
In September, we think of Elizabeth 1st, and (truly) me on a special birthday – more anon
Blessings to you all, do contact me (Elspeth) on betweenthestools@hotmail.co.uk
Good Night, and hope to see you soon
Elspeth R - A skewed world view 