John Bradford

“The fire consumed their bodies, but not their testimony.”

Smithfield, London — July 1, 1555.

The stake stood ready. The bundles of dry wood were stacked high around it. Iron chains were drawn tight.

John Bradford, once a royal chaplain under Edward VI, was condemned for preaching salvation by faith in Christ alone and for rejecting the doctrine of transubstantiation. At his side stood a younger believer — John Leaf, an apprentice by trade, steadfast in the same confession.

As they were fastened to the same post, Bradford turned and embraced Leaf.

“Be of good comfort, brother; for we shall have a merry supper with the Lord this night.”

The torch was set to the wood.

Flames began low, licking at their feet. Smoke rose thick around them. The chains heated. The fire climbed the post that Bradford had kissed only moments before.

Witnesses recorded that Bradford prayed aloud, lifting his eyes heavenward as long as breath remained in him. Leaf stood firm beside him — two men bound by iron on earth, yet bound more strongly by faith.

The fire consumed their bodies, but not their testimony.

And in Smithfield that day, two lives were offered — not in defeat, but in triumph.

“For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.”
— 2 Timothy 4:6–7

…executed for conscience…

“Shot in front of his family, his wife then collecting fragments of his brain from the ground preparing his body for burial herself.”….

In May of 1685, John Brown was working near his cottage at Priesthill when dragoons under John Graham of Claverhouse surrounded him. His wife, Isabel Weir — pregnant at the time — stood nearby with their children.

Brown was questioned and ordered to take the Abjuration Oath, renouncing the Covenants. He refused.

He was granted time to pray. Kneeling on the ground beside his home, he prayed calmly and at length — commending his wife and children to God, and committing his soul to Christ. Those present later said there was no fear in his voice.

When he rose, Claverhouse ordered him shot.

The soldiers fired. His skull was shattered. He fell at his own doorstep, blood staining the soil before the cottage.

After the dragoons departed, Isabel was left alone with her husband’s body. According to early Covenanter accounts, she gathered him in her arms and composed his remains — even collecting fragments of his brain from the ground. She prepared his body for burial herself.

When asked how she endured such a sight, she is said to have answered that she had been given strength from God.

John Brown died without trial, without recanting, without raising a weapon. He was executed for conscience.

His voice was silenced in a moment — but the witness of that morning in Priesthill has echoed through Scottish history ever since.

“I am a Christian.”

“They tortured her from morning until evening.”

She was small — a slave girl, unknown, unnamed in the world’s records except for this: Blandina. The believers feared for her. When the arrests came and the chains closed around their wrists, they trembled not for themselves but for her frail body. Surely she would not endure what was coming.

The governor sought to break the Christians publicly. They were accused of atheism, of cannibalism, of crimes whispered in the dark. The crowds roared for spectacle.

They stripped her and suspended her on a stake, arms stretched wide, her body exposed before the jeering mob. The soldiers scourged her again and again. Hooks tore at her flesh. Each question came like a hammer:

“Swear by the gods.”
“Curse Christ.”
“Confess your crimes.”

And from torn lips came the same answer, over and over:

“I am a Christian. Among us no evil is done.”

They tortured her from morning until evening. The executioners themselves grew weary. One account says they confessed in frustration that they had never seen a woman endure so much and still breathe.

She was returned to prison — a dungeon thick with stench and darkness. The wounded lay around her. Yet those who had feared she would fall now said she strengthened them.

On the day of spectacle, they led her into the amphitheater. The crowd howled. She was tied again — this time to a stake — as wild beasts were released. The Christians watching said she appeared as if hanging upon a cross, and that her prayer stirred courage in their hearts.

The beasts would not kill her.

So they reserved her for the final day of games.

They scourged her again. They placed her upon a red-hot iron chair, and the smell of burning flesh rose into the arena. Still she confessed Christ. Still she would not deny Him.

At last, after enduring torments meant to break a nation, she was handed to a gladiator and killed by the sword.

She was likely young. She was certainly powerless in the eyes of Rome. A slave. A woman. Easily discarded.

Yet the letter sent from Lyons said this of her: that Christ showed in her what the world counts weak, He makes invincible.

No recantation.
No curse.
No surrender.

Only this:

“I am a Christian.”

Though her body had been overcome by suffering, her conscience remained steadfast.

“Though her body had been overcome by suffering, her conscience remained steadfast.”

Anne Askew, a young Protestant woman of Lincolnshire, was arrested in 1545 for denying the doctrine of transubstantiation and for teaching from the Scriptures.

Foxe does preserve statements from her examinations that reflect the faith she held to the end. One of the most often quoted lines attributed to her is:

“I had rather to read five lines in the Bible than to hear five masses in the temple.”

When questioned by church authorities, she refused to accuse others who shared her beliefs.

She was taken to the Tower of London, where an unlawful cruelty was committed against her. Anne Askew was laid upon the rack, and her body was stretched in an attempt to force her to speak. Sir Thomas Wriothesley and Sir Richard Rich were present, urging the torment to continue. Yet she would neither recant her faith nor betray anyone. The torture left her joints dislocated and her body so broken that she could no longer walk.

On July 16, 1546, she was carried in a chair to Smithfield, where she was burned at the stake alongside John Lascelles, Nicholas Belenian, and John Adams (three Protestant men condemned with her). Though her body had been overcome by suffering, her conscience remained steadfast.

Credit: Jeff Rose