The spot in Cambs where two men were burnt at the stake over a …
Every time you think you’ve heard all of Cambridgeshire’s[1] stories, a new one pops up – like a game of cultural Whac-A-Mole. It’s a reminder that you could probably live here for decades and still keep learning new things about our wonderful county.
This time, Cambridgeshire Live[2] came across the story of two men who were burnt at the stake on Ely’s Palace Green for the crime of reading from the wrong Bible. As you might have guessed, it’s quite an old story as the men were executed on October 16, 1555.
At the time, Ely[3] was the second-richest monastery in England, according to the British Pilgrimage Trust[4]. It was during the period of the Reformation, in the reign of Queen Mary I, and the motto “don’t talk about religion at the dinner table” was never more accurate. If you said or did the wrong thing in front of the wrong people you could find yourself in serious trouble.
Two men found this out after reading from the Tyndale Bible, an English version forbidden by Queen Mary I. The queen, also known as “Bloody Mary” by Protestants, had been trying to reverse the English Reformation which had begun during the reign of her father, King Henry VIII, and restore Catholicism as the country’s official religion.
The split between Catholicism and Protestantism was deep, and William Wolsey and Robert Pygot, as the men were called, fell foul of it. The Tyndale Bible which they had been found guilty of reading while street preaching was banned by Catholic authorities in England, who went so far as to burn copies of it.
A plaque in Ely remembering the ‘Reformation Martyrs’ (Image: Ely Museum)
The unfortunate men met the same fate as the Bible they had read from. They were burned alive, with copies of the contentious Bible thrown onto the fire that killed them.
Legend has it that each man sang Psalm 106 from the Bible before eventually dying on the fire. A plaque commemorating the “Reformation Martyrs” can be found on the wall at Palace Green, at ankle level.
References
- ^ Cambridgeshire’s (www.cambridge-news.co.uk)
- ^ Cambridgeshire Live (www.cambridge-news.co.uk)
- ^ Ely (www.cambridge-news.co.uk)
- ^ British Pilgrimage Trust (britishpilgrimage.org)
- ^ Little known airship disaster that started a few miles from Cambs that killed more than Hindenburg (www.cambridge-news.co.uk)
- ^ The Peterborough hotel reportedly haunted by the ghost of Mary Queen of Scots (www.cambridge-news.co.uk)