the Rev. W. Turner , Jun. , MA., Lives of the eminent Unitarians

[3] the Trinity, along with the other corruptions of the Romish church; some of whom afterwards became the most distinguished lights of Unitarian communities in distant lands. Many also of those who received the denomination of Anabaptists openly or covertly denied the deity of Christ. Of these some adopted the Arian sentiment, others that of the proper humanity of Christ, afterwards maintained by Socinus. A few of the Baptists appear to have made their way into England even before the half-reformation of Henry VIII., and did not escape the fiery trial allotted to such as incurred the charge of heresy in those fierce and stormy times. In 1548, John Ashton is recorded to have preached Unitarianism, and, under the terrors of the stake, to have signed a recantation when summoned before Archbishop Cranmer. In 1550, however, the Unitarian doctrine is represented as spreading with alarming rapidity, so that it was deemed necessary to resort to harsher measures. Joan Bocher, who appears, from the obscure and imperfect accounts which we have of her, derived only from the hostile persecuting party, to have been a woman of quality and consideration, is believed to have agreed in sentiment with the Baptists, in their general persuasion of Christ being not a God, but a creature. She appears to have been a zealous reformer, and particularly active in promoting the diffusion of the Scriptures; which, having access to the court, she was at pains to disperse in secret among the ladies of distinction who resorted there. For Arianism (as it is called), and some not very intelligible nicety about the incarnation, this excellent person was persecuted to death by Cranmer