It is true, alarming isn’t it. That one man could be set fire to for preaching and believing something. Well, that is exactly what happened.
On this day, April 24, 1555, George, a farmer from Bolton, was burned alive for believing something different to the Roman Catholic authorities of that time. He had a family too, several children, yet still. They killed him. And for what? Because he preached without a licence and because he refused to submit to the authority of the pope and didn’t believe that Jesus’ flesh and blood could be remade at the mass and eaten like food and drunk like ale.
It’s a sad story and it’s backstory is even sadder. George lost the love of his life, his beloved wife died leaving him lost and alone. Marsh left for Cambridge and there he experienced a new way of life and he became a curate and taught a school. But then, when the monarch died, George was left to face a changing political tide. The dangerous Mary Tudor came to the throne and Marsh was one of many Christians who were hunted down for refusing to submit to her regime and Roman Catholicism.
George revisited his kids in Bolton and a warrant was put out for his arrest and he was taken to Lancaster Castle, and eventually to Chester where he would be burned alive in Boughton, about a mile or so outside the city.
Today his descendants live on and there are a number of memorials to him scattered around the north. In Bolton there is a memorial in the grounds of Deane Church, a memory of him in Smithills Hall, and Lancaster Castle still exists. In Chester there is a plaque to him in St Johns Cathedral and a memorial to him, near his execution site in Boughton. This is near the consecrated ground where his execution took place. A little further on there is a plaque on a wall where his remains were scattered by fellow believers after George was burned.
May this legacy live on.
Simon Peter Sutherland 