John Rogers was born about 1500 at Deritend, near Birmingham, and took his B.A. at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, in 1525. Wolsey chose him as one of the first junior canons of his new Cardinal’s College at Oxford, and from 1532 to 1534 he was rector of Holy Trinity the Less in London.¹ He then went to Antwerp as chaplain to the English merchants. There he came to know William Tyndale, “embraced the doctrines of Protestantism,” and became Tyndale’s fellow laborer in translating the Scriptures. In 1537 he married Adriana de Weyden of Antwerp and went to Wittenberg, where he ministered to a German congregation for some ten years.²

Rogers’ great work was the Bible of 1537 that bore the name “Thomas Matthew.” It was built largely on Tyndale’s work, and Rogers supplied its marginal notes and tables. When he was condemned he was called “Rogers, alias Matthews.” Ryle judged that “Tyndale has received the credit that he justly deserves,—Coverdale rather more than he deserves,—and Rogers much less.”³ Under Edward VI he returned to England. Nicholas Ridley, his fellow Pembroke man, gave him the living of St. Sepulchre in 1550, a prebend at St. Paul’s in 1551, and the divinity lectureship there in 1553.⁴ He would never wear the priest’s square cap and offered to accept it only if the papists were made to wear a chalice and host on their sleeves.⁵

After Mary’s accession he was confined to his house and then, in January 1554, to Newgate. In January 1555 he was condemned before Bishop Gardiner with John Hooper, chiefly for denying the real presence and for being a married priest.⁶ On Monday, February 4, 1555, he was led out to Smithfield, and Sheriff Woodroofe asked if he would revoke his doctrine of the sacrament:

That which I have preached, I will seal with my blood. Then quoth master Woodrofe, thou art an heretic. That shall be known, quoth Rogers, at the day of judgment. Well, quoth master Woodrofe, I will never pray for thee. But I will pray for you, quoth M. Rogers.⁷ John Rogers and Sheriff WoodroofeNewgate, February 4, 1555

On the way he met his wife and eleven children, one at the breast, and went on singing the Miserere.⁸ A pardon was brought at the stake if he would recant, and he refused it. When the fire took hold he “washed his hands in the flame, as though it had been in cold water.” He was the first of the Marian martyrs, and the French ambassador wrote that his children comforted him “in such a manner that it seemed as if he had been led to a wedding.”⁹ Christian History dates his death to January 1555; Foxe gives February 4.¹⁰

Other Reformers   John Hooper

Sources

1. J. C. Ryle, Light from Old Times (London: Chas. J. Thynne, 1890), “John Rogers: Martyr.” ↩
2. Ibid. ↩
3. Ibid. See The Matthew Bible and Miles Coverdale. ↩
4. Ibid. ↩
5. Foxe, quoted in Ryle, Light from Old Times, “John Rogers.” ↩
6. Ryle, Light from Old Times, “John Rogers.” ↩
7. John Foxe, Actes and Monuments, 4th ed. (London: John Day, 1583), vol. 2, 1493, “John Rogers.” ↩
8. Christian History 48, Thomas Cranmer & the English Reformation (1995); Foxe, Actes and Monuments (1583), vol. 2, 1493. ↩
9. Ryle, Light from Old Times, “John Rogers,” quoting Foxe and the dispatch of Antoine de Noailles. ↩
10. Christian History 48; Foxe, Actes and Monuments (1583), vol. 2, 1493. ↩