Hugh Laverick And John Aprice
Here we perceive that neither the impotence of age nor the affliction of
blindness, could turn aside the murdering fangs of these Babylonish
monsters. The first of these unfortunates was of the parish of Barking,
aged sixty-eight, a painter and a cripple. The other was blind,--dark
indeed in his visual faculties, but intellectually illuminated with the
radiance of the everlasting gospel of truth. Inoffensive objects like
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these were informed against by some of the sons of bigotry, and dragged
before the prelatical shark of London, where they underwent examination,
and replied to the articles propounded to them, as other christian
martyrs had done before. On the 9th of May, in the consistory of St.
Paul's, they were entreated to recant, and upon refusal, were sent to
Fulham, where Bonner, by way of a dessert after dinner, condemned them
to the agonies of the fire. Being consigned to the secular officers, May
15, 1556, they were taken in a cart from Newgate to Stratford-le-Bow,
where they were fastened to the stake. When Hugh Laverick was secured by
the chain, having no farther occasion for his crutch, he threw it away
saying to his fellow-martyr, while consoling him, "Be of good cheer my
brother; for my lord of London is our good physician; he will heal us
both shortly--thee of thy blindness, and me of my lameness." They sank
down in the fire, to rise to immortality!
The day after the above martyrdoms, Catharine Hut, of Bocking, widow;
Joan Horns, spinster, of Billericay; Elizabeth Thackwel, spinster, of
Great Burstead; suffered death in Smithfield.
Thomas Dowry. We have again to record an act of unpitying cruelty,
exercised on this lad, whom bishop Hooper, had confirmed in the Lord and
the knowledge of his word.
How long this poor sufferer remained in prison is uncertain. By the
testimony of one John Paylor, register of Gloucester, we learn, that
when Dowry was brought before Dr. Williams, then chancellor of
Gloucester, the usual articles were presented him for subscription. From
these he dissented; and, upon the doctor's demanding of whom and where
he had learned his heresies, the youth replied, "Indeed, Mr.
Chancellor, I learned from you in that very pulpit. On such a day
(naming the day) you said, in preaching upon the sacrament, that it was
to be exercised spiritually by faith, and not carnally and really, as
taught by the papists." Dr. Williams then bid him recant, as he had
done; but Dowry had not so learned his duty. "Though you," said he, "can
so easily mock God, the world, and your own conscience, yet will I not
do so."
After the death of the above, the following three persons suffered at
Beccles, in Suffolk, May 21, 1556. Thomas Spicer, of Winston, labourer;
John Denny, and Edmund Poole.