Welcome, new friend !!! Presumably male ... LOL I just want to tell you that I am looking very much forward to seeing the other upload of the image with the extremely interesting background. BTW Does 'heretic' in that case mean catholic or Anglican ? Please excuse my ignorance and keep in mind that I have graduated the English history and language so long ago ... LOL

I think that from the following that Bishop Hooper was a Bishop of his own views, he disliked Henry VIII and also the "Romish ways"
The Dean of Gloucester,The Very Revd Nicholas Bury, imagines what it was like to be Bishop Hooper in 1555...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/print/gloucestershire/faith/2005/02/bishop_hooper_story.shtml

Bishop Hooper's Story, as the Dean of Gloucester imagines he would have told it to press reporters today:


"http://www.bbc.co.uk/print/gloucestershire/faith/2005/02/bishop_hooper_story.shtml

"I am John Hooper and this is my story - a very sobering one I think you'll find.

I was born in Somerset and as a young man decided to enter the monastic life. I chose the Cistercian order in Cleeve in Somerset. We Cistercians lived a very austere life.

In 1541 a great change came to our fair land, for the wicked King Henry VIIIth dissolved all the monasteries including mine. I fled to London where I read the work of two Swiss reformers who taught me that the only authority for truth was the Bible, not the Church. As a result, I came to detest the church hierarchy, the veneration of the saints and church sacramentalism. The famous German reformer Martin Luther saw church tradition as important though errant, but I disagreed strongly.

I returned to Oxford a new man and started to tell others of the ideas I had learned. These ideas were not listened to by the snobbish academics of that accursed place and I was forced to leave my native country, as I was treated so harshly. In Strasbourg I made some new, true friends, in particular a Dominican monk who had renounced the order and married a nun. Like me, he could not go along with many of Martin Luther's ideas.

Soon after Henry VIIIth had died, in a rather horrible way I am glad to say, and Edward VIth had come to the throne of England, Thomas Cranmer me to come to England. I became chaplain to the Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, the king's uncle, who, quite rightly made himself Protector to the King. He defeated the Scots at the battle of Pinkie, but, as you all must know was indicted for being too ambitious by Northumberland and was executed in 1552.

But back to my story. I was only chaplain to the Protector for a short time. My preaching drew large congregations during my first year back in my home country, I am glad to say, and I persuaded many to follow the ways I had learned. So much so that in 1550, I was offered the bishopric of Gloucester, your own fair city.

But I am afraid this presented me with grave problems for the oath which I had to take in order to be a bishop had references to saints and angels. I had renounced as you know all ideas that good Christians should pray to saints or invoke the help of angels. I was also told that were I to be a bishop I should wear the robes of a bishop at my consecration. Now these I am glad to say did not include chasubles and such flummery but the archbishop was insistent that his bishops should wear the rochet. I refused to wear such a garment. And for this refusal, I was thrown into prison - into the Fleet Prison in London. This was January 1551. Can you imagine what that was like? Vagabonds and debtors and scoundrels of all sorts. There were clergymen there who had run up large debts or assaulted women. And I had to rub shoulders with the merchant class, one or two Rotarians too, who had fallen on hard times.

It only took me a month to decide it would be better to be a bishop, even if I did have to wear a rochet. I was consecrated at Lambeth Palace by Archbishop Cranmer the Archbishop of Canterbury.

And so I came to Gloucester and what a diocese I found here! So much reformation was needed! I preached every day at least three times and I kept my house which was burned down by one of my successors open to the poor. I was on the site where the King's School is now. I drew up 52 injunctions for the clergy to submit to and I issued 31 injunctions for them.

All the stone altars in the county I ordered to be taken down and replaced by decent wooden tables. I forbade the use of candles, or lights as we called them, on the Lord's board and the ringing of sanctus bells and worship of saints and prayers for the dead and all such Romish nonsense. I ordered the clergy to preach twice on Sundays and persuaded them that marriage was a very good thing. Rood lofts, screens, tabernacles and painted images on the walls, all these things were to be removed or defaced and any new glass could not have images of the saints.

Do you know I carried out an examination of the clergy of the diocese and what did I find? 168 could not repeat the Ten Commandments! 41 did not know where the Lord's Prayer was in the Bible and 31 one did not even know that it was Jesus who had taught the Lord's Prayer. And these clergy were spending there time hunting and hawking and gambling! I told them they must study more and read more.

Just a year later I was made Bishop of Worcester, but the King told me to carry on being Bishop of Gloucester as well. I did not like Worcester at all and I found two of the canons of the cathedral very obnoxious indeed and they opposed my ways.

I longed to return more to Gloucester where I had begun my reforming ways. But even there there was trouble. The Dean of Gloucester and his Chapter had not certified or caused to be certified my mandate, for they had not turned up at the convocation of the clergy. This is of course a most serious offence for the mandate is not so much mine as that of the king. I ordered them to appear at a consistory court on 25th February 1553. As a result of their not appearing at this court either, the judge, Chancellor Williams, I am glad to say pronounced them "Contumacious" and suspended them from the execution of any office which should be performed by them.

But then the young King Edward VIth died prematurely. What a change came! I was deprived of my See on March 20th 1554. I was thrown into prison under the orders of the dreadful Queen Mary. There, because I had taught the true gospel, I was condemned as a heretic. They tried to make me recant all that I had said and turn my back on all that I had tried to achieve. But I was not wrong - it was they who are the heretics.

After a year I was condemned as an obstinate heretic and sent back to Gloucester to be burned at the stake. And burned I was just outside St Mary's Gate with the Dean and Chapter forced to watch from the window of their Chapter Room in St Mary's Arch. End quote

The Very Revd Nicholas Bury
Dean of Gloucester

Les, I am sorry to view your user information page only now - The story is so interesting - Thank you so much, dear friend !!!

Dear Les,
Does the image 'dark entrance' bring the impression of bat's wings to you as well ? It does to me LOL Thanks for stopping to view.

It is very "Gothic"

Reminded me of Batman :)

Les, thank you very much for your comment on 'Tiger Optic' Now if I could just give it a fibreoptic glow :) It was just lucky that the orange pebble was in the centre of original photo.:)

Les, dear friend, thank you so much for viewing dancing ducks who send their best regards too !!!!

Hi Les, Thank you for comment on Agapanthus with Bee. The bee was very cooperative, I think he was half asleep :)

Kia Ora :) Many thanks for your comment on Where Dreams May Go. I am glad it brought back happy memories.
We all need our dreams.

Thanks for your comments on "Otto Farm". It sure was a different time period as far as tactics were concerned. This one day battle forever changed the landscape of this small farm community.

gladu liked Lumberjack

i hope to see more of your images, but all the ones i have seen so far are great