John Fox, the Martyrologist.
Mistress Thorpe's Escape at Calais.
[Actes and Monumentes, p. 1702, Ed. 1563.]
The worthy works of the LORD's mercy toward His people be manifold, and cannot be comprehended: so that who is he living in the earth almost, who hath not experienced the helping hand of the LORD, at some time or other upon him?
Amongst many other, what a piece of GOD's tender providence was shewed, of late, upon our English brethren and countrymen, what time Calais was taken by the tyrant Guise (a cruel enemy to GOD's truth, and to our English nation); and yet by the gracious provision of the LORD, few, or none at all, of so many that favoured Christ and His Gospel, miscarried in that terrible Spoil.
In the number of whom, I know a godly couple, one John Thorpe and his wife, which fear the LORD and loveth His truth; who being sick the same time, were cast out into the wild fields, harbourless, desolate, and despairing of all hope of life; having their young infant moreover taken from them in the said fields, and carried away by the soldiers. Yet the LORD so wrought, that the poor woman, being almost past recovery of life, was fetched and carried, the space of well nigh a mile, by aliens whom they never knew, into a village, where she was recovered for that night.
Also the next day, coming towards England, she chanced into the same inn at the next town, where she found her young child sitting by the fireside.
