Hanged for Exposing Religious Neglect - 1592
John Whitgift, archbishop of Canterbury, and an opponent of John Penry.
Introduction
John Penry of Wales wrote the book Equity of a Humble Supplication in Behalf of the Country of Wales that Some Order May Be Taken for the Preaching of the Gospel Among Those People. He noted that thousands of Welsh had almost never heard of Christ. “O destitute and forlorn condition! Preaching itself in many parts is unknown. In some places a sermon is read once in three months.” He proposed a system of lay pastors supported in part with voluntary gifts from the people. His attack on the neglectful behavior of the Church of England won Penry the undying enmity of John Whitgift, the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Arrested, it appeared that Penry might go free. He could be tied to nothing illegal, although his accusers tried hard to pin authorship of the Marprelate Tracts on him (these were coarse, satirical attacks on the bishops of the English church, not at all likely to have come from the pen of the godly man). However, Penry was hanged. In Elizabeth’s England, it was dangerous to voice any criticism. Among his private papers were notes for a petition to the Queen dated this day, April 30, 1592. These notes accused Her Majesty of neglecting the church, and were taken as evidence of a rebellious attitude. He left behind him four daughters, aged four months to four years.
Quote
“The last days of your reign are turned rather against Jesus Christ and his Gospel than to the maintenance of the same. … Amongst the rest of the princes under the Gospel that have been drawn to oppose themselves against the Gospel, you must think yourself to be one. … Your standing is, and hath been, by the Gospel. It is little or smally beholden to you, for anything that appeareth. The practice of your government sheweth that, if you could have ruled without the Gospel, it would have been to be feared whether the Gospel should be established or not. … And, therefore. Madam, you are not so much an adversary unto us poor men as unto Christ Jesus, and the wealth of his kingdom. … But, Madam, thus much we must needs say, that, in all likelihood, if the days of your sister Queen Mary and her persecution had continued unto this day, the Church of God in England had been far more flourishing than at this day it is. … Now, madam, your Majesty may consider what good the Church of God hath taken at your hands; even outward peace, with the absence of Christ Jesus in his ordinance. Otherwise, as great troubles are likely to come as ever were in the days of your sister.”
Dale, R.W. History of English Congregationalism. New York: A.C. Armstrong and Son, 1907.