him. On his taking an oath that he did not hold and would not disseminate the doctrines of Martin Luther, Bilney was dismissed. But in the following year serious objection was taken to a series of sermons preached by him in and near London, and he was dragged from the pulpit while preaching in St George's Chapel Ipswich, arrested and imprisoned in the Tower. Arraigned before Wolsey, William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, and several bishops in the chapter-house at Westminster Abbey, he was convicted of heresy, sentence being deferred while efforts were made to induce him to recant, which eventually he did. Release, re-arrest and execution After being kept for more than a year in the Tower, he was released in 1529, and went back to Cambridge. Here he was overcome with remorse for his apostasy, and after two years he was determined to preach again what he had held to be the truth. The churches being no longer open to him, he preached openly in the fields, finally arriving in Norwich, where the bishop, Richard Nix, caused him to be arrested. Articles were drawn up against him by Convocation, he was tried, degraded from his orders and handed over to the civil authorities to be burned. The sentence was carried out at Lollards Pit, Norwich on 19 August 1531. After witnessing Bilney's death, Bishop Nix is reported to have said, "I fear I have burned Abel and let Cain go". A parliamentary inquiry was threatened into this case, not because Parliament approved of Bilney's doctrine but because it was alleged that Bilney's execution had been obtained by the ecclesiastics without the proper authorisation by the state. In 1534 Bishop Nix was condemned on this charge to the confiscation of his property. References Bibliography – contains longer extracts from Merle d'Aubigné 1490s births 1531 deaths People from Norwich Alumni of Trinity Hall, Cambridge People executed for heresy Executed British people People executed under Henry VIII Executed people from Norfolk 16th-century Protestant martyrs People executed by the Kingdom of England by burning Protestant martyrs of England English evangelicals