Based on Luke 12: 4-7
I’ve chosen to illustrate the burning at the stake of Dr. Rowland Taylor, because he used Luke 12:4-7 to remind his family that they were worth much more than the sparrows.
Here is a little of what Dr. Rowland Taylor wrote in a book which he gave to his son five days before his martyrdom:
“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….”
Dr. Rowland Taylor was executed in England because he believed that priests could marry and because he did NOT believe in transubstantiation—that the bread and wine of communion became the actual, literal, body and blood of Jesus.
Dr. Taylor suffered imprisonments before his martyrdom. He was very mindful of the poor, so he gave away his clothes on the way to his martyrdom, except for his shirt.
While standing in a pitch barrel, awaiting his burning, someone threw a faggot at him which cut his face. Someone else rebuked and threatened him for reciting Psalm 51 in English instead of Latin. And finally another person, whether out of mercy or malice, struck him in the head with the medieval weapon called a halberd, causing his brains to fall out. His dead body then fell into the fire.
There were 284 martyrs listed during the reign of Catholic Mary 1 (Bloody Mary). Dr. Rowland Taylor was among the first to be martyred in 1555.
Artist: Joan Downer
