Elizabeth Barton (1506 – 20 April 1534), known as "The Nun of Kent", "The Holy Maid of London", "The Holy Maid of Kent" and later "The Mad Maid of Kent", was an English Catholic nun. She was executed as a result of her prophecies against the marriage of King Henry VIII of England to Anne Boleyn. Early life Little is known about Barton's early life. She was born in 1506 in the parish of Aldington, about 12 miles from Canterbury, and she appears to have come from a poor background. She was working as a servant in 1525 when she said her visions began. Visions On Easter of 1525, at the age of 19, while working as a domestic servant in the household of Thomas Cobb, a farmer of Aldington, Barton suffered from a severe illness and claimed to have received divine revelations that predicted events, such as the death of a child living in her household or, more frequently, pleas for people to remain in the Catholic Church. She urged people to pray to the Virgin Mary and to undertake pilgrimages. Thousands believed in her prophecies and both Archbishop William Warham and Bishop John Fisher attested to her pious life. When some events that Barton foretold apparently occurred, her reputation spread. Barton's revelations became publicly known and matters were brought up by Archbishop William Warham. The parish priest, Richard Masters, duly referred the matter to Warham, who appointed a commission to ensure that none of her prophecies was at variance with Catholic teaching. This commission was led by the Benedictine monk, Edward Bocking, Barton's spiritual advisor. When the commission decided favourably, Warham arranged for Barton to be received in the Benedictine St Sepulchre's Priory, Canterbury, under Bocking’s spiritual direction. Barton's life became very public; nothing unorthodox was found in her case; her alleged public healing from the Virgin Mary at Court-at-Street increased attention and gave fame to her and to the Marian Shrine. In 1527 Robert Redman published A marueilous woorke of late done at Court of Streete in Kent which discussed all of Barton's "miracles, revelations, and prophecies" and the controversies leading up to the arrests and executions. In 1528, Barton held a private meeting with Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, the second most powerful man in England after Henry VIII, and she soon thereafter met twice with Henry himself. Henry accepted Barton because her prophecies then still supported the