In the morning at two o’clock, the sheriff of London with his officers brought him, without light, from the counter to Aldgate. His wife, suspecting that he would be carried away thus privately, had watched, from the time they had parted, within the porch of St. Botolph’s church, having her daughter Mary with her, and a little orphan girl named Elizabeth, whom the honest martyr had reared from three years old to her then age of thirteen: and when the sheriff and his company came nigh to where they stood, the child Elizabeth cried, “O my dear father! Mother, mother, here is my father led away.” The darkness being so great that the one could not see the other, his wife cried, “Rowland, Rowland, where art thou?” Taylor answered, “Dear wife! I am here,” and he stayed; and the sheriff’s men would have forced him, but the sheriff said, “Stay a little, my masters, I pray you, and let him speak to his wife.” Then he took his daughter Mary in his arms, and he, and his wife, and the orphan girl kneeled and prayed; and the sheriff, and many who were present, wept; and he arose and kissed his wife, and shook her by the hand, and said, “Farewell, my dear wife, be of good comfort, for I am quiet in my conscience; God shall stir up a father for my children.” He had three others, besides his daughter Mary and the young Elizabeth. He then kissed Mary, and then Elizabeth, and he bade them, also, farewell and enjoined them to stand steadfast in their faith. His weeping wife said, “God be with thee, dear Rowland, I will, with God’s grace, meet thee at Hadleigh.” Then he was led on to the Woolsack inn, at Aldgate, where he was put in a chamber, under the custody of four yeomen of the guard and the sheriff’s men. Here his wife again desired to see him, but was restrained by the sheriff, who otherwise treated her with kindness, and offered her his own house to abide in; but she preferred to go to her mother’s, whither two officers conducted her, charging her mother to keep her within till their return.
Meantime so soon as Taylor entered the chamber he prayed; and he remained at the inn until the sheriff of Essex was ready to receive him. At eleven o’clock the inn gates were shut, and then he was put on horseback within the gates. When they arrived outside, Taylor saw his son Thomas standing against the rails, in the care of his man John Hull; and he said, “Come hither, my son Thomas.” John Hull lifted the child up, and set him on the horse before his father; and Taylor put off his hat, and spoke a sentence or two to the people in behalf of matrimony, and then he lifted up his eyes and prayed for his son, and laid his hat on the child’s head, and blessed him. This done he delivered the child to John Hull, whom he took by the hand, and he said to him, “Farewell, John Hull, the faithfullest servant that ever man had.” Having so said, he rode forth with the sheriff of Essex and the yeomen of the guard to go to his martyrdom in Suffolk.
When they came near to Brentwood, one Arthur Taysie, who had been servant to Taylor, supposing him free, took him by the hand and said, “Master Doctor, I am glad to see you again at liberty;” but the sheriff drove him back. At Brentwood, a close hood was put over Taylor’s face, with holes for his eyes to look out at, and a slit for his mouth to breathe through. These hoods were used at that place to be put on the martyrs that they should not be known, and that they should not speak to any one, on the road to the burning-places.
Yet as they went, Taylor was so cheerful, and talked to the sheriff and his guards in such wise, that they were amazed at his constancy. At Chelmsford they met the sheriff of Suffolk, who was there to carry him into his county. At that time he supped with the two sheriffs. The sheriff of Essex laboured during supper to persuade him to return to queen Mary’s religion, telling him that all present would use their suit to the queen for his pardon, nor doubted they could obtain it. The sheriff reminded him, that he had been beloved for his virtues, and honoured for his learning; that, in the course of nature, he was likely to live many years; and that he might even be higher esteemed than ever; wherefore he prayed him to be advised: “This counsel I give you,” said the sheriff, “of a good heart and good will towards you;” and, thereupon he drank to him; and the yeomen of the guard said, “In like manner, upon that condition, master Doctor, we all drink to you.” When they had so done, and the cup came to Taylor, he staid awhile, as studying what he might say, and then answered thus: “Master sheriff, and my masters all, I heartily thank you for your good will. I have hearkened to your words and marked well your counsels; and to be plain with you, I do perceive that I have been deceived myself, and am likely to deceive a great many of their expectation.” At these words they were exceedingly glad. “Would ye know my meaning plainly?” he said. “Yea, good master Doctor,” answered the sheriff, “tell it us plainly.” “Then,” said Taylor, “I will tell you:” and he said, that, as his body was of considerable bulk, and as he thought, if he had died in his bed, it would have been buried in Hadleigh church-yard, so he had deceived himself; and, as there were a great many worms there abiding, which would have mealed handsomely upon him, so they, as well as himself, were deceived; “for” said he, “it must be burnt to ashes, and they will thereby lose their feeding.” The sheriff and his company were thereupon astonished at him, as being a man without fear of death, and making a jest of the flames. During their progress, many gentlemen and magistrates were admitted to see him, and entreated him, in like manner, but he remained immovable.
Thus they drew near to Hadleigh: and when they rode over Hadleigh bridge, a poor man with his five small children awaited their coming. When they saw Taylor, they all fell down on their knees and held up their hands, and cried aloud, “God help and succour thee, as thou hast many a time succoured me and my poor children.” The streets of Hadleigh were crowded on each side by men and women, of the town and country, sorely weeping, and with piteous voices loudly bewailing the loss of their pastor, praying that he might be strengthened and comforted in his extremity, and exclaiming, “What shall become of this wicked world!” Taylor said, “I have preached to you God’s word and truth, and am come to seal it with my blood.” When he came to the almshouses, he put some money, that had been bestowed on him during his imprisonment, into a glove, and this he is said to have given to the poor almsmen as they stood at their doors, to see their wonted benefactor pass. At the last of the almshouses he inquired, “Is the blind man, and blind woman, that dwelt here, alive?” He was answered, “Yes; they are there, within.” Then he threw glove and all in at the window, and so rode forth towards the field of his death.
Coming where a great multitude were assembled, he asked, “What place is this, and what meaneth it that so much people are gathered hither?” It was answered, “This is Aldham common, the place where you must suffer.” He said, “Thanked be God, I am even at home.” Then he alighted from his horse, and with both his hands rent the hood from his head. His hair was unseemly, for Bonner, when he degraded him, had caused it to be clipped in manner of a fool’s. At the sight of his ancient and reverend face, and his long white beard, the people burst into tears, and prayed for him aloud. He would have spoken to them, but whenever he attempted, one or other of the yeomen of the guard thrust a tipstaff into his mouth.
Then he desired licence to speak, of the sheriff; but the sheriff refused him, and bade him remember his promise to the council: “Well,” quoth Taylor, “promise must be kept.” What the promise was is unknown. Seating himself on the ground he called to one in the crowd, “Soyce, I pray thee come and pull off my boots, and take them for thy labour; thou hast long looked for them, now take them.” Then he arose, and putting off his underclothes, them also he bestowed. This done, he cried with a loud voice, “Good people! I have taught you nothing but God’s holy word, and those lessons that I have taken out of God’s blessed book, the Holy Bible; and I am come hither this day to seal it with my blood.” One Holmes, a yeoman of the guard, who had used him cruelly all the way, then struck him a violent blow on the head “with a waster,” and said, “Is that the keeping of thy promise, thou heretick?” Whereupon Taylor knelt on the earth and prayed, and a poor, but faithful woman, stepped from among the people to pray with him: the guards would fain have thrust her away, they threatened to tread her down with their horses, but she was undismayed, and would not remove, but remained and prayed with him. Having finished his devotions he went to the stake, and kissed it, and placed himself in a pitch-barrel which had been set for him to stand in; and he stood with his back upright against the stake, and he folded his hands together, and he lifted his eyes towards heaven, and he prayed continually. Then they bound him with chains, and the sheriff called one Richard Donningham, a butcher, and commanded him to set up the faggots, but he said, “I am lame, sir, and not able to lift a faggot.” The sheriff threatened to send him to prison, but the man refused to obey his command notwithstanding. Then the sheriff appointed to this labour one Mullcine of Carsey, “a man for his virtues fit to be a hangman.” Soyce, a very drunkard, a man named Warwick, and one Robert King, “a deviser of interludes.” These four set up the faggots, and prepared for making ready the fire, and Warwick cast a faggot at the martyr, which lit upon his head and wounded his face, so that the blood ran down. Taylor said, “O, friend! I have harm enough, what needed that?” Then, while he repeated the psalm Miserere, in English, sir John Shelton struck him on the mouth: “You knave,” said he, “speak Latin; or I will make thee.” At last they set the faggots on fire, and Taylor, holding up both his hands, called on God, crying, “Merciful Father of Heaven! for Jesus Christ our saviour’s sake, receive my soul into thy hands!” He stood, during his burning, without crying or moving, till Soyce struck him on the head with a halberd, and the brains falling out, the corpse fell down into the fire.[60]
While some may deem this narrative of Rowland Taylor’s conduct too circumstantial, others perhaps may not so deem. It is to be considered as exemplifying the manners of the period wherein the event occurred, and may at least be acceptable to many. It will assuredly be approved by a few who regard inflexible adherence to principle, at the hazard of death itself, as preferable to a conscience-consuming subserviency, which, while it truckles to what the mind judges to be false, depraves the heart, and saps the foundations of public virtue.