Thomas More

=== Executions ===
Burning at the stake was the standard punishment by the English state for obstinate or relapsed, major seditious or proselytizing heresy, and continued to be used by both Catholics and Protestants during the religious upheaval of the following decades.<ref>Guy, John A. ''Tudor England'' Oxford, 1988. p 26</ref>  In England, following the [[Lollard]] uprisings, heresy had been linked to sedition (see [[De heretico comburendo]] and [[Suppression of Heresy Act 1414]].)

Ackroyd and MacCulloch agree that More zealously approved of burning.<ref name="Ackroyd" />{{rp |298}} [[Richard Marius]] maintained that in office More did everything in his power to bring about the extermination of Protestants.<ref name="Marius406">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DdAYSzj20t0C&q=Thomas+More++burned+heretics+at+Smithfield&pg=PA406 |title=Thomas More: A Biography |author=Richard Marius |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1999 |isbn=0-674-88525-2 |page=406}}</ref>

During More's chancellorship, six people were burned at the stake for heresy, the same rate as under [[Wolsey]]: they were [[Thomas Hitton]], [[Thomas Bilney]], [[Richard Bayfield]], [[John Tewkesbury]], [[Thomas Dusgate]], and [[James Bainham]].<ref name="Ackroyd" />{{rp |299–306}}  However, the court of the [[Star Chamber]], of which More as Lord Chancellor was the presiding judge, could not impose the death sentence: it was a kind of appellate [[supreme court]].<ref name=maitland>{{cite book|last=Maitland|first=Frederic William|title=The Constitutional History of England: A Course of Lectures|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=211LvgAACAAJ|year=1911|publisher=University Press|location=Cambridge}}</ref>{{rp|263}}

More took a personal interest in the  three London cases:<ref name=rex>{{cite journal |last1=Rex |first1=Richard |title=Thomas More and the heretics: statesman or fanatic? |journal=The Cambridge Companion to Thomas More |date=27 January 2011 |pages=93–115 |doi=10.1017/CCOL9780521888622.006|isbn=9780521888622 }}</ref>{{rp|105}}

* [[John Tewkesbury]] was a London leather seller found guilty by the [[Bishop of London]] [[John Stokesley]]<ref group=note name=ukwells-org01a>{{cite web|url=http://ukwells.org/locations/displaylocations/920|title=John Tewkesbury (1531)|publisher=UK Wells|access-date=10 December 2014|quote=Having failed in this the Bishop of London, Stokesley, tried him and sentenced him to be burned.|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140417051137/http://ukwells.org/locations/displaylocations/920|archive-date=17 April 2014}}</ref> of harbouring English translated New Testaments; he was sentenced to burning for refusing to recant. More declared: he "burned as there was neuer wretche I wene better worthy."<ref>{{cite book|publisher=Yale|series=Complete Works|first=Thomas|last=More | volume = 8|title=The Confutation of Tyndale's Answer|editor-last=Schuster|editor1-first=LA | editor2-last =Marius|editor2-first=RC|editor3-last= Lusardi|editor3-first= JP|editor4-last = Schoeck | editor4-first=RJ|year=1973|page= 20}}.</ref>
* [[Richard Bayfield]] was found distributing Tyndale's Bibles, and examined by Bishop [[Cuthbert Tunstall]]. More commented that he was "well and worthely burned".<ref name="Ackroyd" />{{rp |305}}
* [[James Bainham]] was arrested on a warrant of Thomas More as Lord Chancellor and detained at his gatehouse. He was examined by Bishop John Stokesley, abjured, penalized and freed. He subsequently re-canted, and was re-arrested, tried and executed as a relapsed heretic.

Moynahan alleges that More influenced the eventual execution of [[William Tyndale]] in the Duchy of Brabant, as English agents had long pursued Tyndale.<ref>Moynahan, B., ''William Tyndale: If God Spare My Life'', Abacus, London, 2003.{{page needed|date=October 2017}}</ref> This was despite the fact that the execution took place on 6 October 1536, several years after More had resigned as Chancellor and been executed, as well as in a totally different country. A historian has called this "bizarre".<ref name=rex/>{{rp|93}}