John Bale was an English churchman, historian and controversialist, and Bishop of Ossory in Ireland.
22 Facts About John Bale
2.
John Bale wrote the oldest known historical verse drama in English, and developed and published a very extensive list of the works of British authors down to his own time, just as the monastic libraries were being dispersed.
3.
John Bale was born at Covehithe, near Dunwich in Suffolk.
4.
John Bale became the last Prior of the Ipswich Carmelite house, elected in 1533.
5.
John Bale abandoned his monastic vocation, and got married, saying, "that I might never more serve so execrable a beast, I took to wife the faithful Dorothy".
6.
John Bale obtained the living of Thorndon, Suffolk, but in 1534 was summoned before the Archbishop of York for a sermon against the invocation of saints preached at Doncaster, and afterwards before John Stokesley, Bishop of London, but he escaped through the powerful protection of Thomas Cromwell, whose notice he is said to have attracted by his miracle plays.
7.
When Cromwell fell from favour in 1540, John Bale fled with his wife and children to Antwerp.
8.
John Bale returned on the accession of King Edward VI, and received the living of Bishopstoke, Hampshire, being promoted in 1552 to the Irish see of Ossory.
9.
John Bale refused to be consecrated by the Roman Catholic rites of the Irish church, and won his point, though the Dean of Dublin made a protest against the revised office during the ceremony.
10.
John Bale quarrelled bitterly with the aged and respected judge Thomas St Lawrence, who travelled to Kilkenny to urge the people to reject his innovations.
11.
John Bale tried to escape to Scotland, but on the voyage was captured by a Dutch man-of-war, which was driven by bad weather into St Ives, Cornwall.
12.
John Bale was arrested on suspicion of treason, but soon released.
13.
John Bale attacked his enemies with vehemence and scurrility, much of which was directed strongly and forcibly against the Roman Catholic Church and its writers: but this cavil does not significantly diminish the value of his contributions to literature.
14.
King John Bale is represented as the champion of English church rites against the Holy See.
15.
John Bale's work contains much information that would otherwise have been hopelessly lost.
16.
John Bale asserts that Bale's Catalogus was a misrepresentation of John Leland's work, though in all likelihood he only knew Leland's work through his reading of Bale.
17.
The Image of Both Churches was published by John Bale in 1545, and is a detailed commentary on the Book of Revelation, the last book in the Christian Bible.
18.
John Bale proceeded by taking short passages and following with a detailed paraphrase to explain the meaning and significance of such things as the opening of the seven seals, the first beast, the second beast with two horns, the blowing of the trumpets, and the going forth of the horsemen.
19.
John Bale's central thesis is that the Book of Revelation is a prophecy of how God's word and those who love it would fare at the hands of men and a false Church during the last age, meaning the time between the ascension of Jesus and the end of the world.
20.
John Bale did not entirely limit his criticism to the Roman Church but, typical of the Puritans, accused the young Church of England.
21.
John Bale speaks critically of the Church of Mohammed : its tyranny over the people and persecution of the saints.
22.
John Bale is the central figure in the 1988 novel Books of Bale by the novelist and playwright John Arden.