Sister 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. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Barton

She was useful to King Henry when she was prophesying against "heresy" (e.g. Lutheranism) and rebellion. But when she started opposing Henry's divorce of Catherine of Aragon and marriage to Anne Boleyn, and went so far as to claim that he would die within six months if he did so - well, she had to go.

Since she was an "uppity woman", she of course was accused of sexual immorality and insanity. But it took a year or so of vicious rumormongering to undermine her popularity to the point where the Crown dared arrest her. Five (some say seven) of her closest adherents were condemned and executed with her.

To this day there is no agreement as to whether she was a true visionary, delusional, or fraudulent - and since most of the documentation comes from the opposition, it is not likely there ever will be.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Barton
• http://englishhistoryauthors.blogspot.com/2013/12/elizabeth-barton-...
• http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02319b.htm
• http://www.theanneboleynfiles.com/elizabeth-barton-the-nun-of-kent/
• http://www.luminarium.org/encyclopedia/nunofkent.htm
• http://www.stevenconnor.com/dumbstruck/archive/barton.htm
• http://under-these-restless-skies.blogspot.com/2014/03/elizabeth-ba...
• https://www.tudorsociety.com/elizabeth-barton-the-holy-maid-of-kent...
• https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/details/995M-PFC