1. Penry was concerned about the lack of preaching ministers in Wales and the need for a Welsh Bible, He acquired a press and printed tracts and books about the religious state of Wales. This aroused the wrath of the Archbishop of Canterbury - and as a result, Penry found himself in prison. Penry escaped to Scotland. He remained there for three years but eventually decided to return to London to continue the work to which he had dedicated his life - namely, to ensure that the gospel should be preached in Wales, in the Welsh language. Back in London, Penry made the acquaintance of many Independents. These were people who tried to worship in their own way and not according to the Queen's command. One Sunday morning in March 1593, while Independents were assembling together in Islington Woods, officers appeared and arrested a large number of them, including Penry who was imprisoned at Poultry Compter for two months. The end came unexpectedly when Penry was at dinner. He was informed he was to die at five o'clock that afternoon. His chains were removed and he was dragged on a hurdle through the narrow streets to St Thomas a Watering. There he was hanged in the open air for all the townsfolk to see.

2. Mary, Queen of Scots, threatened the religious stability of England under Queen Elizabeth. As a Catholic, she might become a focus for all the Catholics who existed in England and a leader for them. In this sense, Mary was a very real threat to Elizabeth. Elizabeth's solution was to keep Mary, Queen of Scots, in prison. For the next 19 years, Mary was kept in safe custody in various castles and manor houses. In all this time, Mary never met Elizabeth. Mary, Queen of Scots, did not help herself. She made it clear to anybody who would listen, that she felt that she should be the queen of England and even got the support of the Catholic Pope for her claim to the throne. In 1586, a Catholic called Anthony Babington devised a plot to kill Elizabeth, rescue Mary and then see her as the next queen of England. Babington wrote in code to Mary to explain what he was doing. Mary wrote back, stating that she agreed with what he was doing.  Elizabeth’s spies intercepted the letter and Mary was put on trial in October 1586. Elizabeth hesitated about signing Mary's death warrant as she was a fellow Queen. Eventually she did and Mary was executed at Fortheringhay Castle, 70 miles north of London, on February 8th, 1587. The execution was a strange affair. Mary had to be helped onto the scaffold as she was so frail. She spoke her last words in Latin and then putting her head onto the block said "Into your hands, O Lord" three times, again in Latin. It took two goes with the axe to remove her head. When the executioner lifted up her head, he found that he had a wig in his hand and the actual head was still on the scaffold. No-one had known that she had lost her hair. Then her body moved. Underneath her skirt, a small dog, a Skye terrier, was seen.  

3. One of the defining characteristics of the reign of Mary Tudor were the Marian persecutions which took place. Heretics were always burned in public. This included Thomas Cranmer on the 21st March, 1556: "Coming to the stake... he put off his garments with haste, and stood upright in his shirt The fire was lit... he stretched out his right hand, and thrust it into the flame, and held it there before the flame came to any other part of the body... As soon as the fire got up, he was very soon dead, never stirring or crying all the while.“ The executions usually took place on market day so they would be seen by the largest number of people possible. Supporters of the condemned heretic would also attend the execution. In some cases people demonstrated against the idea of killing heretics. If caught, these people would be taken away and flogged. The condemned heretic was tied to a stake surrounded by faggots (bundles of sticks). Friends of the heretic were allowed to hang a small bag of gunpowder around the neck of the condemned man or woman. The idea was that the gunpowder would explode soon after the faggots were lit. When this happened the heretic died fairly quickly. However, sometimes the gunpowder was defective and failed to explode. If the faggots were damp, the fire would burn very slowly and these people suffered in agony for as long as an hour before they died. Penry was concerned about the lack of preaching ministers in Wales and the need for a Welsh Bible, He acquired a press and printed tracts and books about the religious state of Wales. This aroused the wrath of the Archbishop of Canterbury - and as a result, Penry found himself in prison. Penry escaped to Scotland. He remained there for three years but eventually decided to return to London to continue the work to which he had dedicated his life - namely, to ensure that the gospel should be preached in Wales, in the Welsh language. Back in London, Penry made the acquaintance of many Independents. These were people who tried to worship in their own way and not according to the Queen's command. One Sunday morning in March 1593, while Independents were assembling together in Islington Woods, officers appeared and arrested a large number of them, including Penry who was imprisoned at Poultry Compter for two months. The end came unexpectedly when Penry was at dinner. He was informed he was to die at five o'clock that afternoon. His chains were removed and he was dragged on a hurdle through the narrow streets to St Thomas a Watering. There he was hanged in the open air for all the townsfolk to see.