The Last Religious Martyrs in England
In the seventeenth century, as theology became more reasonable it became less confident, and therefore more merciful. Seventeen years after the publication of Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity, two men were publicly burned by the English bishops for holding heretical opinions. These were Legat, burned by King, Bishop of London; and Wightman, by Neyle, of Lichfield. They suffered in 1611. “But this,” says Buckle, “was the last gasp of expiring bigotry; and since that memorable day, the soil of England has never been stained by the blood of a man who has suffered for his religious creed.”
“It should be mentioned, to the honour of the Court of Chancery, that late in the sixteenth and early in the seventeenth century, its powers were exerted against the exaction of those cruel laws by which the Church of England was allowed to persecute men who differed from its own views.”—See Lord Campbell’s Chancellors, vol. ii.