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Thomas Harding was the final Lollard to be executed for heresy, earlier than the creation of the Church of England. This is the story …
The Lollards
The Lollards have been England’s first evangelical motion. Many folks supported John Wycliffe’s reforming concepts which unfold throughout England. Some folks grew to become itinerant preachers, and went in pairs to cities and villages, telling folks the excellent news about Jesus in English. People gathered in one another’s properties, the place conferences have been led by males or ladies, to hope and skim the Bible in English.
They have been educated and peaceable folks and have been known as the Lollards. Their beliefs have been biblical, and by trendy requirements fairly mainstream. In reality they have been generally known as evangelicals. However, on this pre-Reformation interval, a few of their beliefs and practices have been thought to be suspicious by the principle Church authorities. They have been thought-about heretics for issues like assembly with out a priest, utilizing English as an alternative of Latin, having conferences exterior a church constructing, giving major authority to the Bible over the Church, and notably believing that the bread and wine of communion have been purely symbolic.
The Chiltern Lollards
Lollards have been notably quite a few within the Chilterns, within the closely wooded space roughly between London and Oxford. Here Lollards have been persecuted in 1414, 1462 and 1511. It was most likely in 1511 that William Smith, Bishop of Lincoln, arrange an inquiry into heresy in south Bucks, based mostly on the former bishop’s palace at Wooburn, close to Beaconsfield. In December 1511, some Lollards dwelling in Amersham have been interviewed and spoke towards idolatry and superstition. Some have been sentenced to be monks in monasteries, and a few have been sentenced to make pilgrimages. These have been merciless occasions, and others have been sentenced to dying if they didn’t surrender their evangelical beliefs.
Thomas Harding
One of the associates of the Lollards at Amersham was Thomas Harding. His story is instructed in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, and in native oral custom. Thomas Harding, together with many different Lollards agreed to recant their views. By 1521, Harding was discovered to have returned to holding Lollard beliefs, and was once more known as earlier than an ecclesiastical courtroom, arrange by the brand new hard-line bishop John Longland. This time six Lollards, 5 males and one girl, have been sentenced to dying. Harding escaped dying by recanting once more. One of the circumstances imposed on him was that he should not depart the Parish of Amersham. However, after the executions in Amersham in 1522, Thomas Harding moved to Chesham, the place he saved a smallholding.
William Tyndale
Meanwhile there was a more moderen model of the New Testament in English, translated by William Tyndale from the unique Greek. It was in additional trendy and customary English, and simpler to grasp than Wycliffe’s translation. It was printed in Worms and later Antwerp, and first smuggled into England in early 1526. Tyndale’s New Testament grew to become highly regarded and was adopted by the Lollards. Tyndale additionally wrote different theological works, which immediately could be classed as mainstream evangelical.
The Last Lollard Martyr
Around Easter in 1532, Thomas Harding, aged about 60, was discovered sitting by a stile going into the woods, the place he was studying one in all Tyndale’s theological books known as ‘The Obedience of a Christian Man’. Thomas and his spouse Alice have been arrested of their home, the place different books have been discovered underneath his floorboards, which have been thought-about unlawful, most notably Tyndale’s New Testament and one other theological work of William Tyndale’s known as ‘The Practice of Prelates’.
Harding was taken to Wooburn to be interrogated by the bishop and by Rowland Messenger, the vicar of High Wycombe. The fees towards him have been that he was studying the New Testament in English, that he claimed the bread and wine within the communion service have been merely symbolic (i.e. he denied transubstantiation), rejected the worship of photographs, and spoke towards pilgrimages for incomes benefit. These have been all thought-about heretical then.
On May 30, 1532 Harding was taken to Chesham for execution. The place was up White Hill, on the way in which to Botley, simply seen for instance to many. Harding was chained to a stake and a hearth was lit beneath him. It is recorded that one of many spectators threw a firelog at his head, a wierd kindness which hastened his demise.
It was simply two years after Harding’s execution, in 1534, that the Church of England was fashioned, and it was in 1539 that Henry VIII launched the English Bible into church buildings. With the creation of the Church of England, most of the issues that the Lollards had believed and practised have been now not heretical.
Legacy
Thomas Harding is believed to be the final Lollard martyr, earlier than the beginning of the English Reformation. There are a variety of reminders of Thomas Harding in Chesham which will be visited. Chesham lies on the north-west finish of the London Underground Metropolitan Line. There is a granite cross memorial to his reminiscence, close to the doorway to St Mary’s parish church, and a commemorative stone erected on White Hill close to to his place of execution. Neither are removed from the station. There can also be a major college named in his honour. Harding remains to be a neighborhood surname, and plenty of declare to be associated to him.
