Canada and the World
Current Events with a Canadian Perspective
Last update
20 October 2011
Amersham Martyrs Denied
Religious Freedom and Executed
Between 1414 and 1532 about a dozen people
were burned at the stake because they wanted
the right to read the Bible in English
In about 1379, an Oxford priest and academic, John 
Wycliffe (left) started translating
the Bible into English. This, says the Bucks Free Press (October 14, 2004) “brought
the wrath of the church hierarchy upon him. Wycliffe died peacefully in 1384, but
his followers were to be subject to much persecution…”
Wycliffe’s Followers Called Lollards
There were many dissidents in England who campaigned for the reform of the Roman Catholic Church and one of their main complaints was the banning of the possession and reading of English translations of the Bible.
These followers of Wycliffe were called Lollards, which was an abusive description of someone with little or no education.
Challenge to Church Authority Could not be Tolerated
If the Bible could be read in the vernacular the power of the Catholic Church would be reduced.
Indeed, a blacksmith in Lincolnshire questioned the need for a priesthood at all. He is quoted in the Lollarden Facebook page as saying he could make “as good a sacrament between ii yrons as the prest doth vpon his auter (altar).”
So, the Church determined to stamp out the Lollards and one place where the movement had taken hold was Amersham, Buckinghamshire.
First Execution of Religious Martyrs
In A History of the County of Buckingham: Volume 3 (Edited by William Page, 1925) it’s written that the first Lollards to be executed were Richard Turner, Walter Young, and John Horwood in 1414, though Richard Sprotford, a carpenter, was pardoned in that year for heresy.”
This seems to have had the desired effect of suppressing dissent against the Church
for almost a century.
But, then Foxe’s Book of Martyrs records that “In 1506, one William Tilfrey, a pious man, was burnt alive at Amersham, in a close called Stoneyprat, and at the same time, his daughter, Joan Clarke, a married women, was obliged to light the fagots (kindling) that were to burn her father.”
The Bucks Free Press notes that “The persecution of the Amersham Lollards continued with their surviving leader, Thomas Chase. He was tortured in an attempt to force him to recant but it eventually killed him.”
The last to die was one Thomas Harding in 1532. The following year Henry VIII severed the English Church from Rome and the burning of heretics came to an end for a while.
Death by Burning at the Stake
Being executed by fire must have been a hideously painful and drawn out affair. It
was reserved in England for those convicted of heresy or treason and was a crowd-
Capital Punishment U.K. writes that the Church favoured burning at the stake because it “did not involve shedding of the victim’s blood, which was disallowed under the prevailing Roman Catholic doctrine, and because it ensured that the condemned had no body to take into the next life (which was believed to be a very severe punishment in itself).”
It was believed that the fire had a purifying effect.
The victim was placed on a barrel or box and anchored to a wooden stake with chains or iron hoops. The wood was piled around them around and lit. It would be some time before the fire reached head level and the poor unfortunate breathed in the hot gases and flames causing death.
Heretics were generally not accorded the mercy of being strangled by the executioner just prior to the fire as was the case with people convicted of treason or lesser crimes.
A barbaric practice certainly, but no less so than stoning to death, which even today is seen as a suitable punishment for adultery in some countries.
Sources
“Martyrs Died after Row with Church.” Bucks Free Press October 14, 2004.
“A History of the County of Buckingham: Volume 3” Edited by William Page, 1925.
“History of Christian Martyrs to the First General Persecutions.” Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, John Foxe, 1563.
“Burning at the Stake.” Capital Punishment U.K.
© Canada and the World, October 2011
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MONUMENT INSCRIPTION
A stone obelisk has been erected to honour the Amersham Martyrs. On it is the following inscription:
“In the shallow depression at a spot 100 yards left of this monument seven Protestants, six men and one woman, were burned to death at the stake. They died for the principles of religious liberty, for the right to read and interpret the Holy Scriptures and to worship God according to their consciences as revealed through God’s Holy word.
Their names shall live for ever.
William Tylsworth,
Burned 1506
Thomas Barnard,
Burned 1521
James Morden,
Burned 1521
John Scrivener,
Burned 1521
Robert Rave,
Burned 1521
Thomas Holmes,
Burned 1521
Joan Norman,
Burned 1521”