Thomas Harding
Thomas Harding was a Sixteenth Century English religious dissident.
He was from Chesham and was executed as a Lollard in 1532.
He was found to have hidden under his floorboards several works of William Tyndale, including The Obedience of the Christian Man and The Practice of Prelates.
At his trial he was convicted of a series of customary Lollard heretical beliefs, with a small admixture that was unquestionably Lutheran, derived, no doubt, from his reading of Tyndale. He had remained what he had for so long been – a determined Lollard, with views on images that were Lollard rather than Lutheran, for example, but quiet study had begun to carry him on in the direction of continental Protestantism.
Some consider Thomas Harding to be a protestant martyr based on the description of his death in Foxe's Book of Martyrs. The relevant text is:
- In 1532, Thomas Harding, who with his wife, had been accused of heresy, was brought before the bishop of Lincoln, and condemned for denying the real presence in the Sacrament. He was then chained to a stake, erected for the purpose, at Chesham in the Pell, near Botely; and when they had set fire to the fagots, one of the spectators dashed out his brains with a billet. The priests told the people that whoever brought fagots to burn heretics would have an indulgence to commit sins for forty days.
There are several memorials to Thomas Harding, including that pictured to the right. Another can be found in St Mary's Church in Chesham, and Harding's name is also on Martyr's Memorial in Amersham, which also mentions other local martyrs including William Tylsworth, John Scrivener and more.
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Sources
Lambert, Malcolm. Medieval Heresy: Popular Movements from the Gregorian Reform to the Reformation. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1977.