A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Barton, Elizabeth
BARTON, ELIZABETH,
A religious fanatic, who lived in the reign of Henry the Eighth. She was generally called the Holy Maid of Kent, and was originally a servant at Allington; but was taught by designing persons to throw her face and limbs into contortions, to 'pretend to prophetical powers, and to denounce divine vengeance upon heretics. Venturing, however, to aim her predictions against the king, by announcing that if he should proceed in his attempt to obtain a divorce from Catharine of Arragon, and marry another woman, he would not be king seven months after; she was apprehended and tried, together with her accomplices, for high treason and executed at Tyburn, in 1534.
John Fisher, bishop of Rochester, a man of great learning and piety, was so deceived by her pretended sanctity and visions, as to become implicated with her, and to suffer, the following year, the same fate.