The Royal martyr

If you wish to visit the site of a heresy execution or a memorial to a victim in England and Wales, there are several options, most of which date from Mary I’s reign. Aldham Common in Hadleigh commemorates the town’s Rector, Rowland Tayler. Oxford marks an Archbishop, Cranmer, together with Bishops Latimer and Ridley, whilst their episcopal colleagues Hooper and Ferrar met their fate at Gloucester and Carmarthen respectively. There were also several hundred laymen, before and during her time, but all of them were commoners.
Scotland is slightly different in this respect. Patrick Hamilton (left), born in about 1504, was burned outside St. Salvador’s Chapel (below) at St. Andrews in February 1527-8, as an early exponent of Luther’s reforms. He was a great-grandson of James II and thus the cousin once removed of the young James V, whose personal reign began that year. Like Cranmer, Tayler and a few others, Hamilton was legally married.