Edward Wightman

Edward Wightman was the last person to be executed for heresy in England by burning. He was born in Burton and married Frances Darbye of Hinckley on September 2, 1593. They settled in Burton-Upon-Trent, and they had seven children—2 boys and 5 girls. Wightman ran a successful mercer's business for a number of years in Burton. He denounced infant baptism and became a minister of the Baptist Church.

In 1611, Wightman presented a petition to King James, expounding his beliefs. For his beliefs, he was tried, found guilty of heresy and sentenced to death. Sentence was pronounced on December 14, 1611. The charges brought against him included eleven distinct heresies. Part of the charge was that he believed "that the baptizing of infants is an abominable custom; that the Lord's Supper and baptism are not to be celebrated as they now are in the Church of England; and that Christianity is not wholly professed and preached in the Church of England, but only in part." Other charges included several unheard of opinions. His contemporaries said that if Edward really held all the opinions of which he was accused, he would have been either an idiot or a madman, and, if so, he ought to have had the prayers of his persecutors rather than to have them put him to a cruel death.

The authorities first carried out an aborted attempt at execution. When the flames started to burn Wightman, he shouted out something that seemed to imply that he had changed and was ready to accept the faith of the Church of England. The sheriff released him from the stake. Wightman refused to make a formal retraction and continued to preach his "heresies"; he was a few weeks later again tied to the stake and his body burned on April 11, 1612 at Lichfield. This same year another Baptist, Thomas Helwys, wrote A Short Declaration of the Mistery of Iniquity, a plea for religious liberty in England. Very little is known about the subsequent fate of his wife and children, though it is known that his two sons later emigrated to Rhode Island. Such executions probably had the effect of turning the English people against execution for religious beliefs. Although a few were executed after Wightman, he was the last person to be burned at the stake in England.

Wightman had evidently been imprisoned for over half a year at least before his trial. He was first examined on April 18, 1611, again on May 6, as to certain ``Articles ministred by his Maiestes Commissioners for causes ecclesiasticall'', and still further on Sept. 9, Oct. 8, and twice on Oct. 29, of the same year. The first day's trial on Nov. 19 was held in the Consistory of the Cathedral Church of Lichfield in the presence, and by the permission, of Richard Neile, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield. We learn that Edward Wightman was a draper of the parish of Burton upon Trent in Staffordshire in the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield, and that he was tried for heretical depravity, having written with his own hand and delivered to the king a certain book in manuscript covering eighteen leaves. This little work began with the words: ``A letter Written to a learned man [? Anthony Wotton] to discover and confu[t]e the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes very mightely defended with all the learned of all sortes, and most of all hated and abhorred of God himself, because the Wholl world is drowned therein: And seeing he hath promised to answere he knewe not vnto What, and least he should allsoe deale with me as the men of that faccion haue done allready'' etc. It concluded thus: ``And say glorie be to God alone which dwelleth in the high heavens, whose good will is such towardes men that he will now at the last, plante peace on the earth, and lett all people say, Amen. By me Edward Wightman''. It is to be hoped that this writing may some day be found.

On Nov. 26, the second day of the trial, the number of people who wished to be present was so great that the Bishop could not get into the Consistory, and he accordingly ordered the session to be held in the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin, which he entered between one and two o'clock in the afternoon. The third day's trial was held in the same chapel, the fourth in the Consistory.  From what was said on the fourth day it appears that Wightman was born in England and baptized in the Church of England, ``And that from the tyme of his Infancyvntill within theis Two yeares last past he did hould and beleive the Trinity of persons in the vnity of the diety ". The fifth and sixth days' examinations were held in the Consistory. The seventh day was appointed for the hearing of the sentence.

It is interesting to note that among those who took part in this trial was ``magister Willelmus Laude Presidens Collegii divi Iohannis baptistae in Academia Oxoniensi''. This may have been Laud's first experience with a heretic, and here perhaps he began to develop his mistaken views of the necessity of maintaining uniformity of religious belief.  Wightman's trial, it should be said, is simply, and, so far as the present writer can judge, impartially described. From this record, as already stated, we learn that Wightman began to hold new views about 1609, and from that time he had probably been more or less persecuted. His various opinions, as summed up in his sentence, were the following:

That there is not the Trinity of persons (the Father, the Sonn, and the holy Ghost) in the vnity of the diety. That lesus Christe is not the true naturall Sonn of God, perfect God and of the same substance, eternytie and Maiestie With the Father in respect of his Godhead. That lesus Christe is onely mann and a mere Creature and not both God and man in one person. That Christe our Saviour tooke not humane flesh of the substance of the virgine Marie his mother. And that that promise The seede of the Woman shall breake the serpents head was not fullfilled in Christe. That the person of the holy Ghost is not God coequall coeternall and coessentiall with the Father and the Sonn. That the Three Creedes videlicet the Apostles Creed, the Nicene Creed and Atbanasius Creed (contayning the faith of the Trinity, the diety of Christe and the holy Ghost) are the heresies of the Nicolaitanes. That yow the sayd Edward Wightman are that Prophett spoken of in the .18.th Chapter of Deutronomy, and the .3. & .7. Chapters of the Acts of the Apostles in theis wordes. I will raise them vp a prophett, from amonge theire Brethren like vnto the, &c. And that that place of Isay: Whose Fan is in his hand, are proper & personall to yow. And that yow are that person of the holy Ghost spoken of in the Scriptures, And the Comforter spoken of in the .16.th of St. lohns Gospell in theis and the like words videlicet. It is expedient for yow that I goe away for if I goe not away the Comforter will not come vnto yow, but if I depart I will send him vnto yow, and when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, of righteousnes, and of iudgment. And. againe When he is come which is the spiritt of trueth, he will leade yow into all trueth. And that those wordes of our Saviour Cbriste. Of the sin of blasphemie against the holy ghost, which shall neuer be pardoned in this lief nor in the lief to come, are ment of yourself. And that that place the .4.th of Malachie. of Elias to come, is likewise proper & personall. to yow. That the Soule doeth sleepe in the sleepe of the first death as well as the body and is mortall as towching the sleepe of the first death, as the bodie is, And that the soule of our saviour Iesus Christe did sleepe in that sleepe of death as well as his body. That the Soules of the elect Saintes departed are not members possessed of the Triumphant Church in heaven. That the baptizing of Infantes is an abhomynable Custome. That there ought not to be in the Church the vse of the Lordes supper to be celebrated in the elementes of bread and wyne, And the vse of baptisme to be celebrated in the element of water, as they are now practized in the Church of England. But that the vse of Baptisme is to be administred in Water, only to Convertes of sufficient age of vnderstanding converted from infydellity to the faith. That God hath ordayned and sent yow to performe your parte in the worke of the salvacion of the world, to deliver it by your teaching or admonicion from the heresie of the Nicolaitanes, which is the common receaved faith contayned in those .3. Invencions of mann (hec enim sunt verba tua) comonly called the Three Creedes, to Witt, The .12. articles of the beleife, The Nicene Creed, and Athanasius Creed, which faith within theis .1600. yeares past hath prevayled in the World, as Christe was ordayned and sent to saue the world, and by his death to deliver it from sin, and to reconcile it to God, saving that it be not vnderstood that the lymitacion of .1600. yeares, reach to the tyme of Christe and his Apostles, but since their tyme. And that Christianity is not truely sincerely and Wholly professed and preached in the Church of England but onely in parte,…

To show how fairly the Bishop treated Wightman in the trial and how tenaciously the latter held to his beliefs, it should be noticed that after he had responded to all the questions regarding his heretical opinions, the Bishop asked him still again on the fifth day, ``Whither he hath made theis answers advisedly deliberatly and freely of his owne Accord without distraccion of mynde or any other distemperature. Dictusque Wightman respondebat My Lord, Why doe yow aske me such a Question, I thincke yow seeke to disgrace me thereby; I say, that vpon deliberate advise and consideracion and freely I haue made my sayd Answers, and I doe & will stand to them.'' Wightman, it is stated, was first brought to the stake at Lichfield on March 9, 1611/12, but on feeling the heat said he would recant. Two or three weeks later, however, he refused to recant ``in a legal way'', and was apparently burned during the month of April following. He is said to have died blaspheming.