Stories of Christian Martyrs: John Penry

If the queen and the archbishop had their way, Puritan preacher John
Penry would simply and quietly disappear from the face of the earth.
Why else would he be dragged suddenly, at about the dinner hour,
from his cell near Old Kent Road and told to prepare for death? Why
else were the gallows so quickly erected and the sheriff ordered to deny
the condemned man a customary courtesy: a farewell speech affirming
his innocence and loyalty? Why else, apart from sheer hatred, would the
father of four young daughters be condemned as a traitor on the basis of
writings never published or released to the public?

Penry was born on a farm near Llangammarch, Cefn Brith, Wales,
and converted early in his life to Protestant faith. In England, to be a
proper Protestant was to be a member of the Church of England, which
recognized the queen as its head. An improper Protestant was part of the
dissenting or free church movement, which was tantamount to disloyalty
to her majesty, potentially an act of treason. That potential could be a
powerful tool in the hands of political enemies, and Penry had one—the
archbishop of Canterbury, John Whitgrift. Penry had indirectly criticized
the archbishop for failing to provide Wales with Christian nurture in his
1587 tract entitled Equity of a Humble Supplication.

So incensed was the archbishop that he directed the Northampton
sheriff to search Penry’s home for incriminating papers. Indeed, the same
unlicensed press that produced Penry’s work was also producing the now
famous Marprelate tracts, a series of satirical jabs at Church of England
priests and bureaucracy. Because the Marprelate tracts were unlicensed,
Elizabeth I’s Star Chamber court took a serious interest in finding and
stopping those very popular satires. Perhaps the sheriff could nab two
birds with the same stone.

Penry slipped into Scotland to evade the sheriff, but he returned to
London in 1592 to take up preaching at the Puritan meeting hall whose two pastors, Frances Johnson and John Greenwood, had just been
arrested (and would later be executed). In March of the next year, Penry
was captured by authorities and placed under arrest for writing such
vehement criticisms of Queen Elizabeth in his journal. The journal,
unpublished and simply a personal notebook, was judged to contain
“feloniously devised and written words with intent to excite rebellion
and insurrection in England.” The one who had begged for pastors for
Wales was now in a position to plead for his life, and if not for his own
sake, yet for his four young daughters.

But mercy was not to come. A week after his trial the verdict was
rendered; and four days after that, Penry was suddenly ordered to prepare
for his execution. To his daughters—named Deliverance, Comfort,
Safety, and Sure Hope—he wrote: “I, your father, now ready to give my
life… do charge you… to embrace this my counsel… and to bring up
your posterity (if the Lord vouchsafe you any) in this same true faith and
way to the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Penry was led to a quickly constructed gallows, the sheriff carrying
his certificate of death by hanging, signed first, among several other
names, by Archbishop Whitgrift, whose laxity toward the churches in
Wales had first prompted Penry to take a public stand. Penry died a
Protestant martyr killed by offended Protestants, part of the struggle for
worship free of state control.

This story is an excerpt from Foxe: Voices of the Martyrs. You can get your own copy free with any donation to The Voice of the Martyrs.