Protestant Brewer

What we know of Deryk Carver we know from the monumental work of the English Reformation, John Foxe's Acts and Monuments of Matters Most Special and memorable, etc., otherwise known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, first published in 1563. Of course, it begs the question, how accurate is Foxe's account of the arrest, trial, interrogation, confession, and death of Carver? Does he put words into the mouth of Carver - either a little or a lot?

It is reasonable to ask this question, because Carver's confession, that is his statement of his own beliefs and his criticism of the beliefs taught by the Papacy, the traditional Catholic faith, is a straight-down-the-line statement of the Protestant position.

Professor David Loades, the director of the project that has created the online edition of Foxe's book, says of Foxe's accounts of the Marian martyrs: "Some of the stories were undoubtedly embellished with such details as opportune bursts of sunshine, and the reactions of unnamed spectators. His informants must often have been tempted to tell him [Foxe] what they knew he wanted to hear, but there is sufficient contemporary and independent testimony to authenticate at least a proportion of the tales of heroism and self sacrifice which he recorded."

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Deryk Carver was Flemish and at the time of his arrest had been a resident of Brighton for eight or nine years. He was from the prince-bishopric of Liege in Flanders, a stronghold of the Counter-Reformation, and was an exile in England, either voluntary or forced. He was a brewer and ran the Black Lion brewery and inn in the area of what today is Black Lion Street. (The black lion in question is the black lion of Flanders.) He probably grew hops on the Hempshares, the areas of open land of the old town where hemp for rope making was also grown. Carver was one of the wealthier members of his community; in Foxe's words, "a manne, whom the lord hadde blessed as well with temporall ryches, as with his spirituall treasures".

Carver was arrested in 1554, the year following Mary's accession to the throne. So he had come to England during the reign of Edward VI, who succeeded his father in 1547, presumably because he - that is, Carver - approved of the radical Protestant direction in which the young king and his advisers were taking England. Carver was a victim of Mary's determination to re-catholicise England. By the end of her reign more than 300 Protestants had been burned at the stake for refusing to recant their faith.

Carver was arrested in October 1554 by Sheriff Sir Edward Gage, whilst at prayer in his home with eleven other like-minded worshippers. However, only he and three others were committed to prison at Newgate in London: Deryk Carver, John Launder, Thomas Everson, and William Veisy. Perhaps the others quickly recanted. Carver, Launder and Everson were all eventually condemned to be burned to death; Veisy was reprieved.

All were arrested by and imprisoned by the secular authorities, but their inquisition was the responsibility of the religious authority, the Bishop of London, Edmund Bonner.

Although arrested in Brighton, they were burned at different locations across Sussex. Carver was burned at Lewes, Everson at Chichester, and Launder at Steyning.