600 years ago: The execution of Lollard leader Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham

On December 14, 1417, Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, was executed; his age may have been anywhere from 39-57. Sir John was a leader of the Lollards, who rejected Roman Catholic pilgrimages and doctrines such as the worship of saints and transubstantiation, and demanded that the Bible be translated into English. He was convicted of heresy in 1413 and imprisoned in the Tower of London, but escaped, and headed a revolt against his erstwhile friend King Henry V in January 1414. The revolt was unsuccessful, but Lord Cobham escaped again, and spent the better part of four years in Wales, until he was captured and brought back to London, where he was hanged at St. Giles-in-the-Fields Church and then burned at the stake as a traitor. Foxe's Book of Martyrs states that Sir John's execution took place in 1418.

I don't agree with Lord Cobham's decision to participate in political intrigues, but I admire his stand against the leaders of the Roman Catholic church. The Pope at the time was Gregory XII, with Antipope John XXIII claiming the papal throne. Martin V took office as Pope just a month before Lord Cobham's execution. A number of statements by Lord Cobham quoted by John Foxe are worth repeating, inasmuch as they contrast so greatly with the mealy-mouthed talk coming from today's Christian "leaders," whose lives and safety aren't at risk, as Sir John Oldcastle's was.

To King Henry V:

...But, as touching the Pope and his spirituality, I owe them neither suit nor service, forasmuch as I know him, by the Scriptures, to be the great Antichrist, the son of perdition, the open adversary of God, and the abomination standing in the holy place.

To his Roman Catholic examiners:

As for images, I understand that they be not of belief, but that they were ordained since the belief of Christ was given by sufferance of the Church, to represent and bring to mind the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, and martyrdom and good living of other saints; and that whoso it be, that doth the worship to dead images that is due to God, or putteth such hope or trust in help of them, as he should to to God, or hath affection in one more than in another, he doth in that, the greatest sin of idol worship...

...My belief is, that all the Scriptures of the sacred Bible are true. All that is grounded upon them I believe thoroughly, for I know it is God's pleasure that I should so do; but in your lordly laws and idle determinations have I no belief. For ye be no part of Christ's Holy Church, as you open deeds do show; but ye are very Antichrists, obstinately set against His holy law and will. The laws that ye make are nothing to His glory, but only for your vain glory and bominable covetousness. And as for your superiority, were ye of Christ, ye should be meek ministers, and no proud superiors...

...Your fathers, the old Pharisees, ascribed Christ's miracles to Beelzebub, and His doctrine to the devil; and you, as their children, have still the selfsame judgment concerning His faithful followers. They that rebuke your vicious living must needs be heretics, and that must your doctors prove, when you have no Scripture to do it...To judge you as you be, we need go no further than to your own proper acts. Where do you find in all God's law, that ye should sit in judgment on any Christian man, or yet give sentence upon any other man unto death, as ye do her daily? No ground have ye in all the Scripture so lordly to take it upon you, but in Annas and Caiaphas, who sat thus upon Christ, and upon His apostles after His ascension. Of them only have ye taken it to judge Christ's members as ye do; and neither of Peter nor John...For since the venom of Judas was shed into the Church, ye never followed Christ, neither yet have ye stood in the perfection of God's law.

When asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury what he meant by that venom, Sir John replied, referring to Roman Emperor Constantine's endowment of the Church in the 4th century:

Your possessions and lordships. For then cried an angel in the air, as your own chronicles mention, Woe, woe, woe, this day is venom shed into the Church of God. Before that time all the bishops of Rome were martyrs, in a manner; and since that time we red of very few. But indeed since that same time, one hath put down another, one hath poisoned another, one hath cursed another, and one hath slain another, and done much more mischief besides, as all the chronicles tell. And let all men consider well this, that Christ was meek and merciful; the Pope is proud and a tyrant; Christ was poor and forgave; the Pope is rich and a malicious manslayer.

To questioning from doctor of law Master John Kemp, Lord Cobham answered:

He that followeth Peter most high in pure living, is next unto him in succession; but your lordly order esteemeth not greatly the lowly behaviour of poor Peter, whatsoever ye prate of him, neither care ye greatly for the humble manners of them that succeeded him till the time of Silvester, who, for the more part, were martyrs.

When asked his view of the Pope, Sir John replied:

He and you together make the whole great Antichrist, of whom he is the great head; you bishops, priests, prelates, and monks, are the body; and the begging friars are the tail.

As J.C. Ryle, Anglican Bishop of Liverpool (1880-1900), pointed out, the Roman Catholic Church has never repented of its persecution of true Christians who repudiated Rome's false teachings. The unbiblical doctrines and practices that the Lollards opposed are still in place today, and should still be rejected by true Christians.