6 October 1510. Dr. Rowland Taylor, Protestant and Reformed Anglican Churchman, Marian Martyr, is born. Wiki carries some of the story.
Rowland Taylor (sometimes spelled "Tayler")[1] (October 6, 1510 –
February 9, 1555) was an English
Protestant martyr during the Marian Persecutions.
At the time of his death by burning at
the stake, he was Rector of a small parish in a market town, Hadleigh in Suffolk.
Contents
- 1 Taylor's early life and education
- 2 Taylor's religious career
- 3 Taylor's troubles (circa 1553)
- 4 Taylor's trial and martyrdom
- 5 Taylor's final words
- 6 See also
- 7 References
- 8 Sources
- 9 External links
Taylor's early life and education
Taylor was born in Northumberland. In 1530, he
received his LL.B. degree from Cambridge
University. From 1531 to 1538 he was principal of Borden Hostel. In
1534 he received the LL.D. from Cambridge, the same year Martin Luther completed his
German Bible. One year later, in 1535,
William Tyndale
was tried and denounced as a heretic for his new English Bible translation.
Tyndale was burned at the stake in 1536. Taylor's wife - Margaret Tyndale - was
William Tyndale's niece.
Taylor's religious career
- In the late 1530s Taylor served as Hugh Latimer's chaplain and commissary general of the diocese of Winchester.
- In March 1538 Taylor was collated by Latimer to the parish church of Hanbury, Worcestershire.
- When Hugh Latimer resigned, Taylor was taken under the wing of Thomas Cranmer, living with him and (1539) serving as his chaplain. He was ordained by Cranmer and admitted to the parish church of St. Swithin's in Worcester. He was thus given his license to preach and did so in the diocese of London.
- On April 16, 1544, he was presented to the living of Hadleigh, Suffolk, thus becoming their spiritual leader and rector.
- In 1543 the English Parliament banned Tyndale's English version and all public reading of the Bible by laymen. Religious persecution of Protestant clergy, especially by Roman Catholics, intensified in Britain at this time.
- In 1546 the Council of Trent, an ecumenical council of the Catholic Church, decreed that the Latin Vulgate was the authoritative version of the Bible.
- In the summer of 1547, Taylor was employed as a preacher for the royal visitation within the dioceses of Lincoln, Oxford, Lichfield and Coventry.
- On August 15, 1547, he became canon of Rochester, the same year during which King Henry VIII had died in January.
- In 1548, Taylor was appointed archdeacon of Bury St Edmunds and preached at the request of the Lord Mayor at Whitsuntide or Pentecost.
- Edward VI, who reigned from 1547 to 1553, followed Henry VIII, and in 1549 the Book of Common Prayer became the Protestant liturgical text in England.
- In 1550, Taylor was called to serve on a commission against Anabaptists. The same year, he also helped to administer the vacant diocese of Norwich.
- In 1551, at age 41, Taylor was made archdeacon of Exeter in the diocese of Exeter, was also appointed one of the Six Preachers of Canterbury Cathedral and was appointed chancellor to Bishop Nicholas Ridley. His leadership was expanded by serving on a commission to revise the ecclesiastical laws.
- In 1552, he helped administer the vacant diocese of Worcester.
Taylor's troubles (circa 1553)
Taylor's troubles began on July 25,
1553. He was arrested just six days after the new queen, Mary I, ascended the
throne. Aside from the fact that Taylor had supported Lady Jane Grey, Mary's rival, he
was also charged with heresy
for having preached a sermon
in Bury St Edmunds
denouncing the Roman Catholic practice of clerical celibacy,
which required that a priest
in holy orders be unmarried. Many
English clergymen, including Taylor, had abandoned this teaching since the
1530s as a token of the English Reformation.
Taylor also denounced the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, which is the belief that the two elements (bread and wine) taken during Holy Communion, or the Eucharist, actually become the body
and blood of Jesus Christ. Since the Roman
Catholic position is that the Eucharist (and the miracle of transubstantiation)
is a sacrament commanded by God, anyone
denying it, particularly a cleric or pastor, is considered a heretic. This
teaching was opposed universally by the Reformed and Protestant Churches, who
maintained that, since a sacrament is a sign, it cannot also be the thing
signified. For similar reasons relating to the problem of idolatry, Taylor took issue with
the Roman Catholic form of the Mass and received much support
from the villagers of Hadleigh.
These issues came to a head after
Edward VI died (July 6, 1553) and was succeeded by Queen Mary I. In 1554, Mary
began a program of re-establishing Catholicism in England.
However, the English clergy and Anglican faithful, whose hopes for a Protestant
royal succession had been dashed by Mary's imprisonment and execution of Lady Jane Grey, saw it as a
matter of English Christian duty to resist this backlash, not least to resist
the political ambitions of the king of Spain (Philip II, whom Mary married) to draw England within the sphere of the Holy Roman Empire
and its Roman Catholic satellites. Although Mary, as Henry VIII's eldest daughter, was a legitimate successor to Edward VI, England was no longer minded to tolerate a Roman Catholic monarch, and
the courage and endurance unto death of men such as Taylor provided the public
example which ensured that the Reformation was not in fact overturned, but
became established in the realm
of England.
On March 26, 1554, the Privy
Council ordered the arrest of Taylor, and he thus appeared
before Bishop Stephen Gardiner. The proceedings against Taylor ran over several years. During this time
he was kept in the King's Bench Prison. While in prison he befriended many inmates and was instrumental in many
conversions to Anglicanism.
Taylor's trial and martyrdom
January 1555 was an ominous month for
Anglican clergy in England. After several years of separation from Roman
worship and governance, the accession of Mary I in 1553 and her immediate
reversion to Roman Catholic
rule in obedience to the pope
(an attempt to turn back the Reformation of the English church) led her to unleash her wrath upon those whom she defined as treasonably
minded heretics. On January 22, 1555, Rowland Taylor (vicar or rector of Hadleigh) and several other
clergy, including John Hooper,
were examined by a commission of leading bishops and lawyers. As Lord Chancellor, Gardiner presided
at the hearings. Just two days previously, on January 20, Parliament had
revived the old statute for burning convicted heretics.
One of the men, Edward Crome, recanted and was
thus pardoned. William
Barlow equivocated and was sent to the Tower of London, but not
executed. Rowland Taylor, who remained committed, was probably taken to Compter
Prison in London after his examination by Gardiner. Taylor gave a fervent
defence of clerical marriage, which put him at odds with the Roman Catholic Church.
On January 29, 1555, Taylor was
brought before Gardiner again at St Mary's. The next day he was excommunicated and sentenced to
death. He was stripped of his clerical garments in a symbolic manner, and
offered a last supper with his family.
"And although I know,
that there is neither justice nor truth to be looked for at my adversaries
hands, but rather imprisonment and cruel death: yet know my cause to be so good
and righteous, and the truth so strong upon my side, that I will by God's grace
go and appear before them and to their beards resist their false doings."
Taylor's final words
Taylor was taken back to Hadleigh, where
his wife awaited him in the early morning hours at St Botolph's churchyard.
They exchanged a few last brief words and Margaret promised to be present for
his burning in a couple of days. That same day, Taylor was handed over to the
sheriff of Essex at Chelmsford. Before he was handed
over, he spoke these words to his family:
"I say to my wife,
and to my children, The Lord gave you unto me, and the Lord hath taken me from
you, and you from me: blessed be the name of the Lord! I believe that they are
blessed which die in the Lord. God careth for sparrows, and for the hairs of
our heads. I have ever found Him more faithful and favorable, than is any
father or husband. Trust ye therefore in Him by the means of our dear Savior
Christ's merits: believe, love, fear, and obey Him: pray to Him, for He hath
promised to help. Count me not dead, for I shall certainly live, and never die.
I go before, and you shall follow after, to our long home."
Following Rogers on February 4, and
Saunders on the 8th, Taylor became Mary's third Protestant to be burned at the
stake. His execution took place on February 9, 1555, at Aldham Common just to the north
of Hadleigh. His wife, two daughters, and his son Thomas were present that day.
His final words to his son Thomas, as
reported by Foxe:
"Almighty God bless
thee, and give you his Holy Spirit, to be a true servant of Christ, to learn
his word, and constantly to stand by his truth all the life long. And my son,
see that thou fear God always. Fly from all sin and wicked living. Be virtuous,
serve God daily with prayer, and apply thy boke. In anywise see thou be
obedient to thy mother, love her, and serve her. Be ruled by her now in thy
youth, and follow her good counsel in all things. Beware of lewd company of
young men, that fear not God, but followeth their lewd lusts and vain
appetites. Flee from whoredom, and hate all filthy lying, remembering that I
they father do die in the defense of holy marriage. And another day when God
shall bless thee, love and cherish the poor people, and count that thy chief
riches to be rich in alms. And when thy mother is waxed old, forsake her not,
but provide for her to thy power, and see that she lacks nothing. For so will
God bless thee, give thee long life upon earth, and prosperity, which I pray
God to grant thee."
A local butcher was ordered to set a
torch to the wood but resisted. A couple of bystanders finally threw a lighted
torch onto the wood. A perhaps sympathetic guard, named Warwick, struck
Taylor's head with a halberd,
which apparently killed him instantly. The fire consumed his body shortly
thereafter. That same day, John Hooper was burned at the
stake in Gloucester.
The
inscription on the 1818 Taylor Monument
An unhewn stone marks the place of
Taylor's death at Aldham Common (just to the north of Hadleigh, where the B1070 Lady
Lane meets the A1071
Ipswich Road). Next to the unhewn stone, there is also a monument erected in
1818, and restored by parishioners in 1882.[3][4] The stone is
inscribed:
1555
D.TAYLOR.IN.DE
FENDING.THAT
WAS.GOOD.AT
THIS.PLAS.LEFT
HIS.BLODE
D.TAYLOR.IN.DE
FENDING.THAT
WAS.GOOD.AT
THIS.PLAS.LEFT
HIS.BLODE
See also
- English Reformation
- Roman Catholicism
- Anglicanism
- Martyrdom
- Christian martyrs
- Historical roots of Catholic Eucharistic theology
- Marian Persecutions
- Mary I of England
References
1.
Jump up ^ Tayler,
Charles Benjamin (1853). Memorials of the English Martyrs. New York:
Harper & Brothers. p. 59.
2.
Jump up ^ This quote and those following are taken from Foxe's Book
of Martyrs - John Foxe. Acts and Monuments […] (1576 edition).(hriOnline,
Sheffield). Available from: http://www.hrionline.shef.ac.uk/foxe/. [Accessed: 09.21.2004]
4.
Jump up ^ Historic Sites and Other Remarkable and Interesting
Places in the County of Suffolk, by John Wodderspoon, 1839, pp. 47-58
Sources
1.
John Foxe. Foxe's
Book of Martyr's. The account of Rowland Taylor's martyrdom is the entire
subject of Chapter 14.
2.
James Ridley. Bloody
Mary's Martyrs: The Story of England's Terror. 2002.
External links
"Taylor,
Rowland". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.- John Foxe: Acts and Monuments. The Variorum Edition, hriOnline, Sheffield 2004
- Memoirs of the Reformers (Rowland Taylor)
- The Legacy of Rowland Taylor
- Hadleigh in Suffolk
- Wikimapia location of Rowland Taylor statue, Hadleigh, Suffolk, UK.
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