Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lewis, Joyce
LEWIS, JOYCE or JOCASTA (d. 1557), martyr, was only daughter of Thomas Curzon of Croxall, Staffordshire, by Anne, daughter of Sir John Aston of Tixall in the same county. She married, first, Sir George Appleby, in Leicestershire, and, after his death at the battle of Pinkie in 1547, Thomas Lewis, who had acquired part of the manor of Mancetter, Warwickshire, during the reign of Edward VI. For a time she was a strict catholic, but having been attracted towards protestantism by the death of the martyr Lawrence Saunders in 1555, the impression was confirmed by the teaching of a neighbour, John Glover, brother of Robert Glover (d. 1555) [q. v.] Her irreverent behaviour in church was made the subject of complaint to the Bishop of Lichfield, and he sent a citation which, however, Lewis is said to have forced the official to eat. The bishop bound the husband in 100l. to bring his wife up for trial in a month, which he did in spite of intercession from friends. Mrs. Lewis was detained in prison for a year, and burnt at Lichfield 18 Dec. 1557: she was accompanied to the stake by Augustine Bernher [q. v.] She left two sons by her first husband. A tablet to the memory of Joyce Lewis and Robert Glover was erected in Mancetter Church in 1833.
[Foxe's Actes and Monuments, viii. 401–5, 429, 777; Harl. MS. 421, f. 78; Colvile's Worthies of Warwickshire; Riching's Mancetter Martyrs, edit. 1860; Dugdale's Warwickshire, p. 572.]