The Tudor Society
  • Monday Martyrs – Five Canterbury Martyrs

    he burning of George Catmer, Robert Streater, Anthony Burward and George Broadbridge at Canterbury

    This week’s #MondayMartyrs are Protestants George Catmer and Robert Streater of Hythe, in Kent; Anthony Burward of “Calete” (Calais?); George Brodbridge (Broadbridge, Bradbridge) of Bromfield, in Kent, and James Tutty of Brenchley, in Kent.

    All five men were burnt at the stake as heretics in Canterbury in September 1555, in the reign of Queen Mary I.

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  • Monday Martyrs – William Allen, Roger Coe and Thomas Cob

    Three silhouettes of a man's head

    This week’s Monday Martyrs are Protestants William Allen, Roger Coe and Thomas Cob, who were burnt at the stake at the beginning of September 1555, in the reign of Queen Mary I after being condemned together by John Hopton, Bishop of Norwich, for heresy on 12th August.

    William Allen was burnt at Walsingham in Norfolk, Roger Coe was burnt at Yoxford in Suffolk, and butcher Thomas Cob was burnt at Thetford in Norfolk.

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  • March 28 – The burnings of Protestants Stephen Knight, William Pygot and William Dighel

    Three silhouettes of a man's head

    On this day in Tudor history, 28th March 1555, Protestants Stephen Knight and William Pygot were burnt at the stake for heresy in Essex, at Maldon and Braintree, respectively.

    In his Book of Martyrs, martyrologist John Foxe writes of how Stephen Knight and William Pygot were first examined regarding their views on the eucharist, to which they answered that the body and blood of Christ were only in heaven and nowhere else. After being examined regarding other beliefs, according to Foxe, they “were exhorted to recant and revoke their doctrine, and receive the faith” but refused, and when Bishop Bonner realised “that neither his fair flatterings, nor yet his cruel threatenings, would prevail”, he condemned them for heresy.

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  • John Rogers, the first Protestant martyr of Mary I’s reign

    On this day in history, 4th February 1555, John Rogers, clergyman and Biblical editor, was burned at the stake at Smithfield. Rogers was the first England Protestant burned in Mary I’s reign after being condemned as a heretic. he refused the chance of a last minute pardon if he recanted, and died bravely. His wife and eleven children, one being newborn and at the breast, attended his burning. Martyrologist John Foxe recorded that Rogers “constantly and cheerfully took his death with wonderful patience, in the defence and quarrel of the Gospel of Christ.”

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  • 16 October 1555 – The Burnings of Bishops Ridley and Latimer

    he burnings of two of the Oxford martyrs: Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Worcester, and Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London took place on this day in 1555, in the reign of the Catholic Mary I. The two men, along with Thomas Cranmer, who was burnt at the stake on the 21st March 1556, are known as the Oxford Martyrs and their lives and deaths are commemorated in Oxford by Martyrs’ Memorial, a stone monument just outside Balliol College and near to the execution site, which was completed in 1843. A cross of stones set into the road in Broad Street marks the site of their burnings.

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