of the Royal Family, and because of his large gambling debts his property was sold to his political enemy Sir Harbottle Grimston, 2nd Baronet, Recorder and MP for Colchester. It was not only the vicars that were in trouble:a parishioner who in 1520 abused the rector in the pulpit, calling him a false, forsworn man, may have held Protestant views. In 1556 a member of the parish, Agnes George, part of the Stratford Martyrs, was out of favour with Queen Mary, for refusing to attend church until the service was no longer conducted in the Roman Catholic tradition. She was then tried before the Bishop of London, Reverend Edmund Bonner, along with 12 others. During her time at Newgate Prison she wrote a letter attacking the Pope for being the Anti-Christ, saying that she was baptised in Christ's Church not Rome and refusing to believe that bread and wine became the body and blood of Christ. She was burned at Stratford before 20,000 people. In 1879, a large monument was erected in St John's churchyard in Stratford Broadway, to commemorate the thirteen and others who were executed or tortured in Stratford during the persecutions. Agnes's husband Richard, a labourer, was also arrested in 1557. He escaped execution but his second wife, Christine, was also burnt, this time for heresy, along with two others from North Essex. They too were sentenced by Edmund Bonner, who claimed that they were "a spirited danger to other Christians" and a hazard to the state because they believed in redistribution of wealth. They were held in the Colchester Castle dungeon until 26 May 1558 when they were executed in front of a large crowd outside Moot Hall on the High Street. This was not the end of the saga for the George family. In another hunt for heretics in the parishes of North Essex, twenty-two Protestants, including Richard George, were interrogated at Colchester and were sent to London, bound in chains and rope, for trial. One woman in the group was set free at Chelmsford after agreeing to convert to the Roman Catholic Church. Witness accounts claimed that the rest of the group had ample opportunity to escape and were treated quite well. They were tried at Edmound Bonner's house, where the group took the opportunity to ask the crowd attending to convert to Protestantism. Bonner asked his agents to try to persuade the group