ROWLAND TAYLOR
The town of Hadleigh, in Suffolk, was one of the first towns in England to hear the Word of God from Thomas Bilney. Through his work, a great number of men and women in that parish became educated in the scriptures, many of them having read the entire Bible. Some could have recited most of Paul’s epistles by heart, and most were qualified to give a godly judgment in any matter of controversy. The town’s children and servants were also brought up and trained in God’s Word, so Hadleigh seemed more like a university town of educated people than a town of laborers. Even more importantly, those in the town were faithful followers of God’s Word in their daily lives.
Hadleigh’s pastor was Dr. Rowland Taylor, a doctor of both civil and church law. At that time most pastors received a house and land to support themselves, but most rented the land out to farmers and appointed an uneducated priest to serve the town, living elsewhere and not really helping with his congregation, nor fulfilling Jesus’ charge to Peter: “Peter, lovest thou me? Feed my sheep.” Taylor took every opportunity to gather his people together and teach them the doctrine of salvation.
Taylor’s whole life was a blessing to the town. He was a humble man, easily approachable by the poor who came to him for help. He never hesitated to correct the rich, either, as a good pastor should. He was always a gentle man, without rancor or ill will, ready to do good to all men, forgiving his enemies, and never trying to do evil to anyone. Anyone who was poor, blind, lame, sick, or had many children to support found Taylor to be a faithful provider, much like a father. He saw that his parish contributed generously to the poor among them and made a generous contribution to the alms box himself every year.
Taylor served the town of Hadleigh all the days of Edward VI. But after Edward’s death, the Catholics openly ignored the reformations made under Henvry VIII and Edward, overthrew the doctrine of the gospel, and persecuted everyone who refused to abandon the Reformation’s gains and accept the pope as the head of the Church of England.
Soon a lawyer named Foster — an unskilled court steward — conspired with ohn Clerk to return to Catholicism to Hadleigh. They hired John Averth, a money-grabbing, immoral man, to come to Hadleigh and reinstitute the Mass, hastily constructing an altar in the town’s church that was torn down the next day. They rebuilt the altar, this time setting guards to protect it overnight. The next day Foster, Clerk, and Averth brought in all the necessary implements and garments for the Mass, setting out armed guards to prevent anyone from interfering.
Hearing the church bells ringing, Dr. Taylor assumed he was needed at his office but found the church doors tightly locked. Gaining entrance through the chancel door, he saw Averth celebrating the Mass, surrounded by guards with drawn swords.
“You devil!” Taylor shouted. “How do you dare enter this church of Christ and profane and defile it with this abominable idolatry?”
Foster stood up. “You traitor! Why are you disturbing the queen’s proceedings?”
“I’m no traitor,” Taylor called back. “I’m the shepherd of this flock, with every right to be here. I order you — you popish wolf — in the name of God, leave! Don’t poison Christ’s flock with your idolatry.”
“Are you going to make a commotion and violently resist the queen’s proceedings?” Foster demanded.
“I’m not making a commotion. You papists do that. I only resist your idolatries, which are against God’s Word and the queen’s honor and subvert the country. Furthermore, you’re breaking the law that says no Mass may be said at an unconsecrated altar.”
When Averth heard that, he began to move away from the altar. John Clerk commanded him to continue the Mass while Foster’s guards forcibly led Taylor out of his church.
Mrs. Taylor saw her husband being pushed out, fell to her knees, and said loudly, “I beg God, the righteous judge, to avenge the injury this popish idolater does to the blood of Christ!” They threw her out, too, and locked the doors against the people who were gathering outside.
A day or two later, Foster and Clerk complained about Taylor to Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester. When he was summoned to appear before the bishop, the townspeople begged Taylor to run away, knowing he was doomed if he went to London; but Taylor took his servant and obediently appeared before Gardiner.
Gardiner greeted Taylor in his usual manner, calling him a “knave, traitor, heretic” and many other names.
“My lord,” Taylor replied, “I am not a traitor or heretic, but a true subject and Christian. I came here at your command. Why did you send for me?”
“Are you come, villan? How do you dare look me in the face? Don’t you know who I am?”
“Yes,” answered Taylor, “I know who you are. You’re Dr. Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, lord chancellor — but still a mortal man. If I should fear your lordly looks, why don’t you fear God? How can you look any Christian in the face? You have forsaken the truth, denied our Savior Jesus Christ and His Word, and gone against your oaths. How will you look when you appear before the judgment seat of Christ and answer to the oaths you made to King Henry VIII and King Edward VI?”
“I did well in breaking those oaths and coming home again to our mother, the Catholic Church of Rome. I want you to do the same.”
Taylor spent the next two years in prison, reading, preaching, and exhorting the great number of godly ministers that filled the country’s prisons at that time, one of whom was Master Bradford. So many of them were locked up together that the jails began to resemble universities.
About the end of January 1555, Taylor, Bradford, and Sanders were called before the bishops of Winchester, Norwich, London, Salisbury, and Durham and charged with heresy. Given the opportunity to submit to the pope and confess their errors, all three refused. On February 4, 1555, Edmund Bonner, bishop of London, came to the prison to strip Taylor of his church offices. Told to put on his vestments, Taylor refused.
“You won’t?” Bonner sneered. “Then I’ll make you!”
“You won’t, by the grace of God.”
Taylor was dressed by force so the ceremony could continue.
The next night, Taylor’s wife and son were allowed to eat dinner with him since the king’s jailers tried to be as kind as possible, unlike the bishop’s. His wife suspected that he would be taken away that night, so she watched the prison until he and his guards appeared at 2:00 a.m. The sheriffs allowed them a few minutes together to say goodbye, and Taylor encouraged them all to stay firm in their faith. That night he was taken to an inn named the Woolpack, where he stayed until the sheriff of Essex arrived at eleven the next morning. Taylor was put on a horse and led out of the inn’s courtyard, where his servant, John Hull, and Taylor’s son met them. Taylor was allowed to hold the boy, bless him, and say good-bye to his servant before being led off.
All the way, Taylor was joyful and happy, busily preaching to his guards and trying to convert them. In a few days, they arrived in Hadleigh, where Taylor was to be burned. The streets of the town were lined with townspeople crying and lamenting their pastor’s fate, but Taylor’s head was hooded until they reached the common, and he wasn’t sure where he was until a guard told him.
“Thanks be to God!” he exclaimed. “I’m home!” He was taken off his horse and unhooded.
When the people saw his ancient face and long white beard, they began calling out encouragement, but Taylor had promised not to speak — probably under the threat of having his tongue cut out. After he gave away his clothing, he looked up and said two sentences: “Good people, I have taught you nothing but God’s Holy Word, and those lessons I took out of the Holy Bible. Today I come to seal it with my blood.” He was promptly hit in the head by one of the guards.
After saying his prayers, Taylor stepped into the pitch barrel, folded his hands in prayer, and stood against the stake as the fire was lit. A man in the crowd hurled a piece of wood at him, hitting him in the head and bloodying his face. “Friend,” Taylor said, “I have enough problems. Why was that necessary?” Then he recited the Fifty-first Psalm until Sir John Shelton hit him in the mouth. “Speak in Latin!” he demanded.
Taylor lifted up his hands. “Merciful Father of heaven, for Jesus Christ my Savior’s sake, receive my soul into Your hands.” He stood still without moving or crying until Soyce struck him on the head with a halberd, spilling out his brains, and his corpse fell into the fire.
WILLIAM HUNTER
On March 26, 1555, William Hunger — a godly man only nineteen years old — was martyred. His story should be an example to all Christian parents who find their emotions at odds with their convictions, for William’s parents allowed their son to follow his beliefs, even though it led to his death.
William was apprenticed to a silk weaver in London. In the first year of Queen Mary’s reign, his parish priest ordered him to receive communion at the Easter Mass, which he refused to do. His master, afraid he himself would be in danger if William remained in his house, asked the boy to move back to his father’s house in Brentwood for several weeks, which he did.
Five or six weeks later, William picked up a Bible he found in the chapel at Brentwood and began to read it aloud to himself. He was interrupted when Father Atwell came into the chapel. “Are you meddling with the Bible?” Artwell demanded. “Do you know what you’re reading? Can you expound the scriptures?”
“I don’t take it upon myself to expound the scriptures,” William explained. “I found it here and was reading it to comfort myself.”
Father Atwell commented, “It hasn’t been a happy world since the Bible was published in English.”
“Oh, don’t say that! It’s God’s book, from which we learn to know what pleases and displeases God.”
“Didn’t we know that before?”
“Not as well as we do now with the Bible available,” William replied, “I pray we always have it with us.”
Father Atwell fumed. “I know you! You’re one of those who dislike the queen’s laws. That’s why you left London. If you don’t mend your ways, you and many other heretics will broil!”
“God give me grace to believe His Word and confess His name, no matter what happens,” William retorted.
Atwell rushed out of the chapel, calling back, “I can’t reason with you, but I’ll find someone who can, you heretic!”
Wiliam stayed in the chapel and continued to read until Atwell returned with the vicar of Southwell. “Who gave you permission to read and expound on the Bible?” the vicar demanded.
“I don’t expound on it, sir,” William answered. “I only read it for comfort.”
“Why do you need to read it at all?”
“I’ll read it as long as I live. You shouldn’t discourage people from doing so. You should encourage them.”
“Oh, so you want to tell me what I should do?” the vicar muttered. “You’re a heretic!”
“I’m not a heretic just because I speak the truth.”
More words passed between them concerning the sacrament of communion, on which William explained his point of view. Accused of being a heretic, he replied, “I wish you and I were both tied to the stake, to prove which of us would defend his aith the longest. I think you’d recant first.”
“We’ll see about that!” the vicar replied, leaving to report the boy.
The vicar went directly to Master Brown, who called in William’s father and the local policeman and demanded that Mr. Hunter go find his son, since William had wisely left town after his argument with the vicar. Mr. Hunter rode for two or three days to satisfy Brown, intending to go back and say he couldn’t find the boy, when suddenly they met. Mr. Hunter told his son to hide; he would go back and say he couldn’t find him.
“No, Father,” William said, “I’ll go home with you so you don’t get in trouble.” As soon as they arrived in town, Willliam was arrested and taken before Brown, who argued with him about transubstantiation. William was so firm in his believes that he enraged Brown, who sent him to Bishop Bonner in London.
William was put in the stocks in London for two days, fed only a crust of brown bread and a cup of water before he defended himself to the bishop. Getting nowhere with the boy, Bonner ordered him locked up in jail with as many claims against him as he could bear. “How old are you?” he asked William.
“Nineteen.”
“Well, you’ll be burned before you’re twenty if you don’t do better than you did today!”
William spent nine months in jail, appearing before the bishop six times, including the time he was condemned on February 9. That day the bishop made William his final offer: “If you recant, I’ll make you a freeman and give you forty pounds to set up a business. Or I’ll make you the steward of my house. I like you. You’re smart, and I’ll ake care of you if you recant.”
William replied, “Thank you, but if you can’t change my mind through scripture, I can’t turn from God for love of the world. I count all worldly things but loss and dung, compared to the love of Christ.”
“If you die believing this way,” the bishop continued, you will be condemned forever.”
“God judges righteously, justifying those whom man condemns unjustly,” William maintained.
William was sent back to Newgate Prison for a month then taken home to Brentwood for burning. When his parents visited him there, they encouraged him to remain faithful, saying they were proud to have a son willing to die for Christ’s sake.
At the stake, William asked the people to pray for him. Master Brown sneered, “Pray for you? I wouldn’t pray for you any more than I would for a dog!”
“I forgive you.”
“I’m not asking for your forgiveness!” yelled Brown.
Seeing a priest approaching with a Bible, William called out, “Get away you false prophet! Beware of them, people. Don’t take part in their plagues.”
The priest replied, “As you burn here, so you will burn in hell.”
“You lie, you false prophet!” William cried. “Get out of here!”
A man in the crowd spoke up. “I pray God will have mercy on his soul.”
“Amen, amen,” answered the crowd.
As the fire was lit, William lifted his hands to heaven and said, “Lord, Lord, Lord, receive my spirit.” Dropping his head into the smoke, William Hunter gave up his life for the truth, sealing it with his blood to the praise of God.
RAWLINS WHITE
Rawlins White fished for many years in the town of Cardiff, a man who was well liked by his neighbors. During the reign of King Henry VIII, he was a good Catholic, but when Edward came into power, White became a great searcher of the truth. He was a totally uneducated man, unable to read, so he sent his young son to school; and when the boy had learned to read, his father had him read the Bible and other books to him every evening.
White enjoyed studying the scriptures so much that he soon gave up his fishing to travel from place to place and instruct others, taking his son everywhere with him. Although he never learned to read, White did have a remarkable memory and was able to cite the scripture more accurately than many educated men of the day. He woon became a well-known, successful professor of the truth.
Five years after White began his work, Queen Mary took the throne. White gave up preaching openly but continued to do so privately, bringing a great number of people to Christ. As the persecutions increased, his friends urged him to sell his goods, give the money to his wife and child, and go into hiding, but White refused to deny Christ.
The town’s officers soon captured White, taking him to the bishop of Llandoff, who sent him to prison after having many arguments with him about theology. He was imprisoned in the castle of Cardiff for a whole year. Even though White knew he was doomed and his family would suffer terribly when he was gone, he continued to pray for and preach to the friends who regularly visited him this year.
At the end of this time, White was tried before the bishop of Llandoff. The bishop made a long speech explaining why White was being tried, to which he replied, “My lord, I thank God I am a Christian, and I hold no opinions against the Word of God. If I do, I want to be corrected by the Word of God, and I’ll pray to mine. I know my prayer will be answered.”
When they were done, the bishop said, “How do you stand? Will you revoke your opinions or not?”
“Surely, my lord,” White replied, “Rawlins you left me, and Rawlins you find me. By God’s grace, Rawlins I will continue to be. Certainly, if your prayers had been just and lawful, God would have heard them; but you honor a false God and pray incorrectly, so God didn’t answer your prayers. I’m only one poor, simple man, but God has heard my [rayer and will strengthen me in His cause.”
As the furious bishop was about to condemn White, someone suggested they have a Mass, to see if that worked a miracle in the man. Rawlins White left to pray in private while they went about their Mass, returning when he heard the elevation bell ring — the principle point in the Mass’s idolatry.
“Good people,” he cried to the congregation, “bear witness on the day of judgment that I did not bow to this idol” [the host].
White was condemned and returned to prison in the Castle of Cardiff — a dark, horrible place. He was brought to his execution wearing his wedding shirt, an old russet coat, and an old pair of leather pants. On the way to the stake, he met his weeping wife and children, the sight of them making him cry, too, until he hit his chest with his hand and said, “Flesh, you’re in my way! You want to live? Well, I tell you, do what you can, you won’t win.”
White went cheerfully to the stake, learning against it for a while, then motioning to a friend in the crowd. “I feel my body fighting against my spirit and am afraid it will win. If you see me tempted, hold a finger up to me so I’ll remember myself.” As the smith chained him to the stake, White told him to tighten it well in case his body struggled with his soul.
They began to pile the straw and wood around White, who reached down and helped them pile it up the best he could. When a priest stood next to him to preach to the crowd, he listened respectfully until the man reached the sacrament of the altar, then called out, “Don’t listen to this false prophet!”
The fire was lit. White held out his hands in the flames until his sinews shrunk and the fat dropped away, only taking them out once to wipe his face with the fire. All the while he was suffering — which was longer than usual — he cried loudly, “O Lord, receive my soul. O Lord, receive my spirit!” until he could no longer open his mouth. At last the fire consumed his legs, and his whole body fell over into the flames. Rawlins White died for testifying of God’s truth and was rewarded the crown of everlasting life.
(To be continued …)
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