It was on this day in 1612 that Bartholomew Legate was burned at the stake in Smithfield, England.
Three weeks later Edward Wightman would be the last person executed for heresy in England.
Legate is of interest to me for several reasons, not least of which was the heresy for which he suffered was socinianism, that is believing and preaching the natural humanity of Jesus.
Bartholomew and his brother Thomas were born into a merchant family specializing in cloth. Their spiritual pilgrimage took them to the edge of and past the bounds of Christian orthodoxy. Thomas would die in prison, his brother, well, it was the stake for him.
It appears the king, James the first, personally intervened trying to get him to recant. He wouldn’t.
He was the last person to be burned at the stake as a judicial punishment in England.
And another reason I find myself thinking of Bartholomew was that fire.
And horrible, horrible.
Also, there’s some deep thing about our hearts and questing after the true.
And how love gets mixed up in it.
Love.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In