On This Day, August 2 1555

By Khen Lim




Image source: christianity.com

The crowds were usually the same. Around the stakes surrounded by mounts of dried twigs, branches and kindling, they would be baying for blood, hurrying the hour to pass. It was 1555, just three years before she would perish herself, Queen Mary I of England had continued on a path of vengeance, and her reign would long be remembered as Bloody Mary. In replacing her brother, King Edward VI, who died rather prematurely, she reversed England’s national faith of choice from Protestantism back to Roman Catholicism. And close to 300 Protestant Christians died by her hands.

On August 2 1555, James Abbes stood hardly a few yards from his chosen place of death. Absent of his clothes and shoes, his calm was only interrupted by his own courageous exhortations. Even as the people gathered around, waiting to see yet another burning, James edged closer to the stake and urged the bystanders to hold on to the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ and to uphold the cause with their blood if needed be; something he was now about to do.

Abbes was remarkably confident but then, it seemed every avowed Protestant in his position who went before him were similarly so. All of them appeared completely convicted in Christ that they only knew a much better place they were embarking for. 

In the midst of all these, one of the sheriff’s servants was so perturbed by Abbes calls of courage that he began to curse his faith, branding him a heretic and mocked him as a madman. But that was all fair territory for someone like Abbes – under Mary’s rule, all Protestants were heretics of the first order.

James had earned the title of heretic much earlier when the bishop of Norwich, Dr Hopkins or Hopton (Elizabeth, The English Martyrology, 1843) issued a warrant for his arrest. On hearing the news, he attempted to go into hiding but he was ratted out by an informant who then brought him in. 

Upon his arrest, the bishop swayed James to accept some money in exchange for his recantation, which he did. However hounded by guilt, he returned to the bishop, convicted that a cruel fiery death would still be better than to betray Christ. Before the bishop, James flung the coins (20 or 40 pence) at him, and decried the wrongful betrayal, knowing that he had just crossed the point of no return.

Even so, the bishop persuaded James not to go down that path. He tried but there was no reversal for him. Assured of his faith in Christ, he stood steadfast and a mock trial was held in which he was charged with heresy and then convicted to death. James was condemned to die at the stake, to be burned to a crisp.

On that August 2 amidst a noisy crowd in the market square of Bury, England, James stood by the stake as the sheriff’s men tied him securely. He looked up into the sky, as the fire was lit. As the flames became fiercer, licking upwards, James steeled himself with fervour and courage, praising and glorifying God in his final hour. He was seen to still be exhorting Christ even as the flames were now consuming his whole body.

John Fox in his Book of Martyrs had recounted the moment when one of the sheriff’s servants who had mocked James earlier, branding him a madman, had himself gone mad too. As James was burning, he mimicked the victim, tearing off his clothes and footwear before the crowd, declaring repeatedly at the top of his voice, “Thus did James Abbes, the true servant of God, who is saved but I am damned!”

Soon after he ran through the town of Bury, crying out that James Abbes was a good man and now saved but he was damned. Before long the sheriff had secured him and made him put his clothes back on. Even so, he removed them again and did the same thing. He had seemingly gone deranged. Thence the priest of the parish was summoned. He brought with him a crucifix but when the madman saw it, he again cried out that he, including those who were guilty, was the cause of Abbes’ damnation.

Eventually he was tied to a cart and taken back to his master’s house where it was told that six months later, he died.

Sources 

Rev. Fox, John; ‘Book of Martyrs: A Universal History of Christian Martyrdom,’ Volume 2, (John I. Kay & Co.: Philadelphia), 1831.

Charlotte Elizabeth (ed), ‘The English Martyrology Abridged From Fox,’ Volume 1, (Presbyterian Board of Publication), 1843.