From the local history:
Amersham has long been a hotbed of nonconformity in religious beliefs. Townsfolk responded to Wycliffe's ideas and supported the Lollard cause. In 1414, three of them were burned at the stake for these beliefs. Worse was to follow. In 1506 the Bishop of Lincoln held an inquisition in Amersham which resulted in more burnings with William Tylsworth's pyre ignited by his own daughter. A further inquisition in 1521 caused five more Amersham men to be burnt at the stake. These martyrs are remembered by a memorial just outside the town. The town was later host to Baptist, Methodist and Quaker churches, all of which had strong followings. The ecclesiastical census of 1851 shows that the Baptist church in the town was nearly as strong as the official church. The Quaker William Penn, later to become the proprietor of the American State of Pennsylvania, came often to Amersham, where he courted a local girl, Gulielma Springett, whom he married.
A couple of years ago, one of my students made a piece of artwork about the last person to be burned at the stake in England. It turned out that the site for the burning was his back garden and that the ring that they used to tie people to was still there!! I can’t quite remeber the full story but it went a litle like this.A professor from Oxford moved to Exeter (this is hundreds of years ago) on Boxing day he got his son to nail a note on the doors to Exeter Cathedral saying something about denouncing the Pope!!!, The professors son was spotted and then followed home. Some time later the Proffessor & son where arrested and then the professor was burned at the stake. He kept shouting things about the church, the pope etc etc and one of the clergy attending the burning picked up a burning log from out of the fire and shoved it in his mouth to shut him up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The site for this was at the back of a small church/chapel about 1 mile from the city. The site is now gardens to some Almshouses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almshouse).A nasty story indeed.ALSO, Exeter was the last place in England to try women for Witchcraft. 3 Women where executed/murdered for this. Another of my students made a film about it.
Yes, I’m sure I’d quickly get myself in trouble if I was transported back to that era. I’d probably have to learn to take people’s beliefs very seriously so as not to get myself burned, too. But that seems to be how deeply insecure people are. I suppose human identity is a very fragile thing, very easily threatened. A simple doubt in the mind – he is different to me, therefore one of us is wrong, and for it to be me is unthinkable, therefore he must die – has been the cause of incredible suffering, it seems. I kind of feel like peoples identities are so fragile because they continue to identify exclusively with very local and fleeting things, with very small things.I have some connections with Amersham, and, of course, I grew up not far from Exeter.
I have a book about the witch hunts from the 1400’s till the 1800’s.In germany they built ovens to execute witches
It is, needless to say, a scary phenomenon. We’re apt to call all sorts of things witch-hunts theses says (such as the blacklisting in McCarthy era America), because we can recognise the pattern, but I wonder if the pattern existed in the same way before the actual witch trials. I suppose there’s always been persecution of minorities (or at least since societies attained a certain degree of complexity), but wonder how long there has been the specific pattern of seeking out those deemed to be secret heretics.I feel I should add, just in case there’s any confusion, the Amersham Martyrs were not burnt as witches, but because they had the impudence to read the Bible. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LollardyI came across the first picture above by chance recently, and was intrigued. And the story behind it fascinated me.
http://www.exeterbeerglass.com/heavitree1.htmlThis link will give you a bit more info about the story I was talking about: It basically goes like this:-ExecutionLivery Dole at the brow of Heavitree Road was a place of execution until 1531. The last person to be executed here was Thomas Benet who was burned at the stake for his religious beliefs. It was a brutal execution involving burning furze being pushed into his mouth when he would not deny the heresy of his son who had put a message on the Cathedral’s west door saying that the pope was an anti christ.Sorry if I caused any confusion by mentioning witches!
Thank you.”Sorry if I caused any confusion by mentioning witches!”Not that I’m aware of, but I know I didn’t make my original entry very clear. I really just wanted to post the image, with links to information, but ended up posting a quote, too.