The Martyrdom of William Tyndale, translator of the Bible into English, was instigated by Sir Thomas More.  Convicted of heresy in Vilvoorde, Belgium, Tyndale was executed by strangulation, after which his body was burnt at the stake. His dying request that the King of England’s eyes would be opened found its fulfilment just two years later when Henry VIII authorised the Great Bible, which was largely Tyndale’s work, for the Church of England.

Tyndale’s translation is the first English Bible to draw directly from Hebrew and Greek texts and the first English one to take advantage of the printing press. Born around 1494 in Gloucestershire, a monument to Tyndale stands above the village of North Nibley.