In 1521, Thomas Bernard was burnt alive at Norwich, for denying the real presence.
About the beginning of the year 1522, Mr. Wrigsham, a glover; Mr Langdale, a hosier; Thomas Bond, Robert Harchets, and William Archer, shoemaker, with Mrs. Smith, a widow, were apprehended on Ash Wednesday and committed to prison. After examination, the bishop of Litchfield declared them to be heretics, and they were all condemned and burnt alive at Coventry.
Robert Silks, who had been condemned in the bishop's court as a heretic, made his escape out of prison, but was taken two years afterward, and brought back to Coventry, where he was burnt alive.--The sheriffs always seized the goods of the martyrs for their own use, so that their wives and children were left to starve.
In 1532, Thomas Harding, who with his wife, had been accused of heresy, was brought before the bishop of Lincoln, and condemned for denying the real presence in the sacrament. He was then chained to a stake, erected for the purpose, at Chesham in the Pell, near Botely; and when they had set fire to the fagots, one of the spectators dashed out his brains with a billet. The priests told the people, that whoever brought fagots to burn heretics would have an indulgence to commit sins for forty days.
During the latter end of this year, Worham, archbishop of Canterbury, apprehended one Hitten, a priest at Maidstone; and after he had been long tortured in prison, and several times examined by the archbishop, and Fisher, bishop of Rochester, he was condemned as a heretic, and burnt alive before the door of his own parish church.
Thomas Bilney, professor of civil law at Cambridge, was brought before the bishop of London, and several other bishops, in the Chapter house, Westminster, and being several times threatened with the stake and flames, he was weak enough to recant; but he repented severely afterward.
For this he was brought before the bishop a second time, and condemned to death. Before he went to the stake he confessed his adherence to those opinions which Luther held; and, when at it, he smiled, and said, "I have had many storms in this world, but now my vessel will soon be on shore in heaven." He stood unmoved in the flames, crying out, "Jesus, I believe;" and these were the last words he was heard to utter.
A few weeks after Bilney had suffered, Richard Byfield was cast into prison, and endured some whipping, for his adherence to the doctrines of Luther: this Mr. Byfield had been some time a monk, at Barnes, in Surry, but was converted by reading Tindal's version of the New Testament. The sufferings this man underwent for the truth were so great, that it would require a volume to contain them. Sometimes he was shut up in a dungeon, where he was almost suffocated, by the offensive and horrid smell of filth and stagnated water. At other times he was tied up by the arms, till almost all his joints were dislocated. He was whipped at the post several times, till scarce any flesh was left on his back; and all this was done to make him recant. He was then taken to the Lollard's Tower in Lambeth palace, where he was chained by the neck to the wall, and once every day beaten in the most cruel manner by the archbishop's servants. At last he was condemned, degraded, and burnt in Smithfield.
The next person that suffered was John Tewkesbury. This was a plain simple man, who had been guilty of no other offence against what was called the holy mother church, than that of reading Tindal's translation of the New Testament. At first he was weak enough to abjure, but afterwards repented, and acknowledged the truth. For this he was brought before the bishop of London, who condemned him as an obstinate heretic. He suffered greatly during the time of his imprisonment, so that when they brought him out to execution he was almost dead. He was conducted to the stake in Smithfield, where he was burned, declaring his utter abhorrence of popery, and professing a firm belief that his cause was just in the sight of God.