“The Martyrdom of Thomas Losebie, Henrie Ramsey, Thomas Thirtell, Margaret Hide and Agnes Stanley at Smithfield on 12th April, 1557”, woodcut illustration from Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.

The five ordinary Londoners pictured above had been snitched out by neighbors for shirking the Catholic Mass under Queen Mary — the offense that Protestants would call recusancy when the mitre was on the other bishop.

They had the sturdiness one would attribute to men and women of the common clay, and also the theological unsophistication; our martyrology caveats of their interrogation that “some of them attributed the title and honour of a sacrament to the holy estate of matrimony” — the standard Anglican and also Lutheran position was that there were only two sacraments, baptism and eucharist — but this “undoubtedly was done rather of simple ignorance, than of any wilful opinion.” That’s the kind of interpretive generosity you’re entitled to when you go to the stake for the faith.

(Foxe has some miniutes from their interrogation; scroll down to page 410 of this pdf of Foxe’s Volume 12, from here.)

On this day..

• 1726: Edward Burnworth and his gang, London Lives
• 1715: Jeremiah Meacham, "mightily distressed"
• 1635: Sawney Cunningham, an abandoned Villain
• 1895: Richard Burleson, Crab Shack controversy
• 1969: Alexandre Banza, Central African Republic politician
• 1776: James Langar, Smuggerlius?
• 1749: Richard Coleman, solemnly declaring
• 1652: Joan Peterson, the Witch of Wapping
• 1967: Aaron Mitchell, Ronald Reagan's first and only execution
• 1782: Captain Joshua Huddy
• 1814: Six slaves in Guyana
• 1966: Christiaan Soumokil, South Moluccan President