I suppose some of you may have seen the latest series on the Tudors on TV, well I wondered how Brentford was affected by the religious upheavals in that period after Henry VIII created a new Protestant church resulting in years of religious persecution in England.
During Henry VIII's reign, Catholics were hanged on the pretext of high treason, and later when Henry VIII's daughter Queen Mary came to power, Anglicans and Protestants were burned to purge heresy.
I found three events that occurred in Brentford which illustrated the religious persecution in the 16th century. One which challenged catholic rituals bought in a will and two bloody events which occurred in Brentford in those troubled times.
Henry Redman was Henry VIII's master mason and was buried in Brentford's St Lawrence Church in 1528. He was buried in Catholic times and his gift of Catholic rituals was contested later.
According to The Museum of London's article on Henry Redman.
"In his will, Henry Redman left some of his money to pay for candles to be lit in the church and for a priest to sing hymns and say prayers for his soul. These were Roman Catholic rituals and after the Reformation were not approved of. Henry VIII confiscated the Redman estate on the grounds that it was 'given over to superstitious uses'."
Syon House today is built on top of the foundations of the Syon Abbey which was there in Tudor times. The Reformation upheavals drove the Bridgettine order out of Brentford and today their order is at Syon Abbey in Devon. They are the only English community of nuns with an unbroken existence from before the Reformation to the present day.
But they suffered at the hand of Henry VIII when he wanted to secure the acquiescence of the monks and religious orders to him now being the Head of the English Church.
There is an excellent description of this period in Syon Abbey's history.
"Richard Reynolds, also called "The Angel of Syon", a monk of the Bridgettine Order at Syon Abbey, a scholarly man and Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, friend of Thomas More. It had been felt that if such a distinguished person took the Oath of Supremacy, many other hesitant individuals would follow.
On the 4th May 1535, on the orders of King Henry VIII, Richard Reynolds, Brigittine priest and monk of Syon, was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn in London after being dragged through the streets. The quarters of the body of St. Richard - the first man to refuse the oath - were chopped to pieces and hung in different parts of London including on the top of carved pinnacle on the gateway of Syon Abbey.
After the execution of the Bridgettine monk, Syon suffered from periodical and harassing visits by the commissioners of the King who strove hard to induce the religious to acknowledge the King's Supremacy. Some brothers acceded, and Brother Thomas Brownal rebuked one of them publicly in the church, with the result that Brownal was sent to Newgate Prison and died there, 21 Oct 1537."
Under Edward Bonner, the Catholic bishop of London, 120 Protestant martyrs were sentenced to death for their faith, often under government pressure. Bonner himself spent many years in court and in prison under Elizabeth I. He died in the Marshalsea gaol in Southwark Borough High Street on 5th September 1589.
Six protestants were burnt at the stake in Brentford on July 14, 1558,
These were part of the Marian Persecutions carried out in the reign of the Catholic queen Mary I (1553-1558), against protestants and dissenters for their beliefs. recorded in The Book of Martyrs, by John Foxe (1563).
William Pikes, 38 years old, was a tanner in Ipswich, Suffolk who was arrested in Islington during the Marian persecutions as a member of a group studying the Bible in English, and was burnt at the stake in Brentford.
It is said that he had absented himself from public worship for three years, following the accession of Queen Mary, since the Roman Mass was contrary to his conscience. His name appears in a list of dissenting persons of St Margaret's, drawn up on May 18, 1556, entitled 'A complaint against such as favoured the Gospell in Ipswich, exhibited to Queene Marie's Counsaile.' Pikes was a diligent student of the Bible, and possessed a copy of the Matthew Bible, containing the translations of Tyndale and Coverdale, which, although bearing King Henry VIII's royal licence, had since been suppressed and became a forbidden book.
If you would like to add to, or comment on our articles, please use our Comment Form, so we can share them.
