Uploader's Comments

White enamelled plaque with a shield of Arms Azure six martlets 3,2,1 or (Appleby), In Memory Of Mrs Joyce Lewis Formerly Joyce de Appleby of the Moat House Appleby Magna. She was Burnt at the Stake in Litchfield in 1557 for her Constancy in Religion.
At this date Mary I was the queen of England, and during her attempt to reverse the English Reformation, begun during the reign of her father, Henry VIII, heretics were burnt alive. The story of why Joyce rejected C16 Roman Catholic mass, and her subsequent arrest, imprisonment, temptation and death, is related in Acts and Monuments of Martyrs by John Foxe. This can be found at P2036-2037, John Foxe, The Unabridged Acts and Monuments Online or TAMO (1583 edition) (The Digital Humanities Institute, Sheffield, 2011). Available free, from: http//www.dhi.ac.uk/foxe [Accessed: 02.05.2020]. (Photo Sept 2015).