Fox's Book of Martyrs: Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant; Deaths of the Primitive Protestant MartyrsFoxe, John
HistoryHistory
Fox's Book of Martyrs: Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant; Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs
Foxe, John
Church history; Martyrs; Persecution
They placed him amidst them, and made him the subject of their derision
and mockery, during a whole day's entertainment, trying to exhaust his
patience, but in vain, for he bore the whole with true christian
fortitude. They spit in his face, pulled his nose, and pinched him in
most parts of his body. He was hunted like a wild beast, till ready to
expire with fatigue. They made him run the gauntlet between two ranks of
them, each striking him with a twig. He was beat with their fists. He
was beat with ropes. They scourged him with wires. He was beat with
cudgels. They tied him up by the heels with his head downwards, till the
blood started out of his nose, mouth, &c. They hung him by the right arm
till it was dislocated, and then had it set again. The same was repeated
with his left arm. Burning papers dipped in oil, were placed between his
fingers and toes. His flesh was torn with red-hot pincers. He was put to
the rack. They pulled off the nails of his right hand. The same repeated
with his left hand. He was bastinadoed on his feet. A slit was made in
his right ear. The same repeated on his left ear. His nose was slit.
They whipped him through the town upon an ass. They made several
incisions in his flesh. They pulled off the toe nails of his right foot.
The same repeated with his left foot. He was tied up by the loins, and
suspended for a considerable time. The teeth of his upper jaw were
pulled out. The same was repeated with his lower jaw. Boiling lead was
poured upon his fingers. The same repeated with his toes. A knotted cord
was twisted about his forehead in such a manner as to force out his
eyes.
During the whole of these horrid cruelties, particular care was taken
that his wounds should not mortify, and not to injure him mortally till
the last day, when the forcing out of his eyes proved his death.
Innumerable were the other murders and depredations committed by those
unfeeling brutes, and shocking to humanity were the cruelties which they
inflicted on the poor Bohemian protestants. The winter being far
advanced, however, the high court of reformers, with their infernal band
of military ruffians, thought proper to return to Prague; but on their
way, meeting with a protestant pastor, they could not resist the
temptation of feasting their barbarous eyes with a new kind of cruelty,
which had just suggested itself to the diabolical imagination of one of
the soldiers. This was to strip the minister naked, and alternately to
cover him with ice and burning coals. This novel mode of tormenting a
fellow-creature was immediately put into practice, and the unhappy
victim expired beneath the torments, which seemed to delight his inhuman
persecutors.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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