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Ancester in my ' genes ‘ ! ......

Recently discovered I am a direct descendent of John Maundrel ( martyre )   .... interesting story !  ........  reads like something out of Braveheart. 

.... from an old Salisbury account : -
But the people of Fisherton Anger witnessed a terrible event on March 24th 1556. The traditional spot lies beneath the New Rampart garage (now demolished) at St. Paul's roundabout, where customers unwittingly refuelled their cars on ground that once heard screams of agony and glorious witness to God's truth.
On that dreadful day John Spicer, a stonemason, William Coberley, a tailor and John Maundrel, a farm worker, were tied to stakes and burned to death. They were not criminals. Loyal to Monarch and country, they worked hard and lived uprightly. Their only mistake was to make a discovery that upset the politico-ecclesiastical worlds, and in the 16th century that was a dangerous thing to do.
For at least 600 years the established Church had laid down what people should believe about God and His plan for the world. It became much corrupted into what man preferred, especially when it filled empty treasuries and mollified guilty consciences.
When the brave William Tyndale published his English translation of the New Testament in 1525 and copies passed into many eager hands, the momentous discovery was made - Salvation was free to all! Entry into Heaven was not earned by good works, but by simply believing that God's Son had given them a free passport! Repentance and faith were the only requirements.
The Bible had previously been withheld from ordinary people - kept and read only by Latin-speaking priests, who then passed on erroneous doctrines, and promised Hell and Damnation to all who did not exchange money for 'Pardons' and 'Indulgences'. What joy was felt by those who obtained a Bible of their own and therein discovered the truth!
Spicer, Coberley and Maundrel came from Wiltshire, but most is known about John Maundrel. He was born in Rowde, near Devizes, the son of a farmer, and married and lived with his wife and children at nearby Bulkington, near Keevil. He is described in John Foxe's Acts and Monuments as being of "good name and fame" and "very honest and charitable," much respected by his neighbours. He obtained a copy of the Bible and by asking others to read it to him, was able to memorise large passages very quickly.
Foxe records: "He became a diligent hearer and a fervent embracer of God's true religion, so that he delighted in nothing so much as to hear and speak of God's Word, never being without the New Testament about him, although he could not read himself. But when he came into company that could read, his book was always ready, having a good memory, so that he could recite by heart most places of the New Testament."
It is easy to imagine John revelling in the simple message of God's love. He was a loveable humble man. His honest nature compelled him to want to share his great discovery - that it was not imperative to reach God only through a priest or by prayers uttered to saints. On the contrary, Christ held out His arms to him, an ordinary man, and said, "Come unto me". How different to what he had been hearing week after week from the priests.
But John's enthusiasm soon met stubborn opposition. The Reformation had begun, but Henry VIII had used it only for political ends. The full Catholic doctrines had been reaffirmed in the Six Articles in 1539. Churches still practised idolatry and deviations from the true Gospel, and superstitions and even Black Magic were rife. The priests however, were reluctant to give up a valuable source of wealth from their sale of 'Pardons' and 'Indulgences'. Any enlightenment that would release people from this blackmail was frowned upon. John and others like him must be stopped forthwith!
While Henry VIII reigned, church officials visited abbeys checking on any persons who might be expressing so-called 'heretical' ideas, and John Maundrel found himself before a certain Dr. Trigonian at Edington. He was accused of speaking against holy water, holy bread and other similar ceremonies. He was punished by the penance of walking round Devizes market wearing a white sheet and carrying a candle.
But John was not to be silenced - not even when Mary I ascended the throne and thirsted after the blood of all non-papists. He increased his evangelism by leaving home to search out fellow believers to join with them in spreading the true Gospel. He stayed with John Bridges at Kingswood near Bristol, and others, working as a cowman while enjoying their fellowship and learning more of the Bible.
After a while he returned secretly to Wiltshire to confer with a friend, Anthony Glee, of the Vyes. As they talked together in the garden, John asked if he ought to go home - his wife and family needed him, but Dr. Trigonion and his cronies would welcome the opportunity to pounce on him the minute he was discovered. Mr Glee quoted from Matthew 10:23, and advised flying from city to city to avoid capture. But John quoted the apocalyptical words from Revelation 21:7-8, "He that overcometh shall inherit all things...but the fearful, and unbelieving...shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire". John thought that fearfulness was as great a sin as idolatry, so he decided to return home and take whatever it pleased God to bring to him.
His constant companions were now the two men destined to share his dreadful death, William Coberley the tailor, whom Foxe describes as "somewhat learned", and the stonemason John Spicer, whose son later became the engineer responsible for the great fortifications at Berwick-on-Tweed. They enjoyed many happy hours together in Christian fellowship.
One day they visited Keevil Church. Sad at heart they watched the parishioners proceed into the building behind a painted image. They earnestly called the churchwarden, Robert Barksdale, and others, to leave off worshipping idols and return to the living God, but they were scorned and unheeded. When the Vicar entered the pulpit and prayed for the souls in Purgatory, John Maundrel, knowing that no such place was mentioned in the Bible, remarked in an audible voice, "That is the Pope's pinfold" - likening it to a sheepfold. The Bible told them that second chances to be saved from sin only came before death.
The priest got very annoyed at these interruptions, and he obtained an order for the three men to be put in the stocks for the remainder of the service. A Justice of the Peace had them removed to Salisbury the next day, to be held in the old prison (demolished when St. Paul's roundabout and Churchill Way were built). Then they were brought before the Chancellor of the Diocese, Dr. Geffrey, and Bishop Capon.
John Capon, or Salcot, was Bishop of Salisbury from 1539 until his death in 1557. Few mourned this ruthless, avaricious man. The good Bishop Jewel, who succeeded him and whose Apology for the English Church was ordered by Elizabeth I to be chained in every church, declared of him, "A capon hath devoured all" - a telling description of his predecessor's pilfering of Cathedral property while in office. Apart from lining his personal coffers, Capon's ambition was to please Queen Mary by rounding up as many 'heretics' as possible, even changing his beliefs overnight if he could accomplish this. He had no conscience about this, or whether his injustice fell upon women and children as well as men. Initial questioning would be done secretly in his own house, and it was there that Maundrel, Coberley and Spicer came under the thumb of this evil man, aided by the equally corrupt Chancellor Geffrey.
The final examination took place in the old parish church of St. Clements in Fisherton Anger. This church was demolished in 1852 and was sited some 350 yards south of the present St. Paul's church, in the Mill Road area. St Paul's contains the tower buttresses and Norman font from the old church.
Bishop Capon's fellow interrogators were picked for their bias to his cause and consisted of the Sheriff, Master St. John and several popish priests. There is no record that members of the public were present, but if they were, no voice was raised in protest. The prisoners were asked to state their beliefs.
"As Christian men should and aught to believe," came the reply, "we believe in God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; in the twelve articles of the Creed; in the Holy Scriptures from the first book of Genesis to the last of the Apocalypse."
This did not satisfy the Chancellor and he asked, "What of the sacrament of transubstantiation? Do you not believe that the Pope is the Vicar of Christ on earth?"
All three denied these beliefs. The Communion bread and wine were but symbols of Christ's sacrifice, and there was but one head of the true Church, and that was Christ. Furthermore, the place called Purgatory, where souls were said to be delivered from their sins after death by the Pope's pardons, or the Church's suffrages, was a blasphemous invention. They believed faithfully that Christ's blood had purged their sins - and all who came to Him for forgiveness - unto the end of the world.
The Chancellor asked again, "Do you not think it necessary for images to be in churches, and should not Saints be prayed to and worshipped as a help to spirituality?"
"No, No! We come to God through Christ alone. We abhor idolatry. The Bible condemns it," said the three men, and John Maundrel added with honest countryman's wit, "Wooden images are good to roast a shoulder of mutton, but evil in the church, whereby idolatry is committed".
Their firm stand for the truth set the seal to their doom. The Chancellor read out their condemnation and handed them over to Sheriff St. John. John Spicer said, "O Master Sheriff, now must you be their butcher, that you may be guilty also with them of innocent blood before the Lord". Sorrowfully they were lead back to the gaol.
The following day, March 24th 1556, two posts were set up in "a place betwixt Salisbury and Wilton," the sight of the New Rampart garage. The prisoners were taken there and they knelt down to pray quietly together. They were stripped to their shirts. John Maundrel was then heard to say in a loud voice: "Not for all Salisbury!" in reply to the Sheriff's offer of a Queen's pardon if he recanted. John Spicer, his face alight with heavenly fervour, shouted: "This is the joyfullest day that ever I saw!"
The faggots were lit and the suffering of the three innocent men began. The awful reality of this form of execution is graphically described by John Foxe. William Coberley, the "learned tailor", seemed to have been chained to the stake with the least draught and was "somewhat long aburning as the wind stood. After his body was scorched with the fire, and his left arm drawn and taken from him by the violence of the fire, the flesh being burnt to the white bone, at length he stooped over the chain, and with his right hand, being somewhat starkened, knocked upon his breast softly, the blood and matter issuing out of his mouth. Afterward, when they all thought he had been dead, suddenly he rose up with his body again." A fearful end to the earthly lives of three brave and sincere men, who sought only to defend the truth of the Scriptures.
The parish church at Rowde pays touching tribute to John Maundrel's martyrdom in a small plaque worded: "Pray remember John Maundrel, a native of this parish. Martyred by fire in Salisbury 24th March 1556". On the shelf below is a framed yellow page from a version of Foxe's Book of Martyrs, describing the event. At the end it says: "Beware of the many in pulpit and pew who are endeavouring by every means to bring about the same hellish state of things, and avoid them. Read Deuteronomy 13,

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  1. Patricia Alexander avatar
    Patricia Alexander Nov 22, 2020

    I’ve been transported it another time in in history! Such a cruel death!
    God rest their souls!

  2. Patricia Alexander avatar
    Patricia Alexander Nov 22, 2020

    I’ve been transported it another time in in history! Such a cruel death!
    God rest their souls!

  3. Patricia Alexander avatar
    Patricia Alexander Nov 22, 2020

    I’ve been transported it another time in in history! Such a cruel death!
    God rest their souls!

  4. Alison avatar
    Alison Jun 11, 2017

    This moving account of your ancestor’s courageous struggle against oppression put me in mind of Charles Poulsen’s gripping and moving novella-account of the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, passed to me decades ago and unforgettable ever since, not just for the terrible persecution of our brave ancestors who tried to ‘storm heaven’ but even more for how amazingly close they came to succeeding! x      

    https://www.abebooks.co.uk/book-search/title/english-episode/author/charles-poulsen/