Protestantism in England From the Times of Henry VIII - James Aitken Wylie

the blood of martyrs watered it. Next after Bilney
came Richard Bayfield. Bay field was a monk of
Bury, and was converted chiefly through Tyndale's
New Testament. He went beyond seas, and joining
himself to Tyndale and Fryth, he returned to
England, brining with him many copies of the
Bible, which he began to disseminate. He was
apprehended in London, and carried first to the
Lollards' Tower, and thence to the Coal-house.
"Here he was tied," says the martyrologist, "by the
neck, middle, and legs, standing upright by the
walls, divers times, manacled."[15] The design of
this cruelty, which the greatest criminals were
spared was to compel him to disclose the names of
those who had bought copies of the Word of God
from him; but this he refused to do. He was
brought before Stokesley, Bishop of London, and
accused of "being beyond the sea, and of bringing
thence divers and many books, as well of Martin
Luther's own works, as of others of his damnable
sect, and of Ecolampadius the great heretic, and of
divers other heretics, both in Latin and English."
He was sentenced to the fire. Before execution he
was degraded in the Cathedral church of St. Paul's.
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