JOHN

See also:

• BRADFORD
• JOHN BRADFORD (1510?—1555)
• BRADFORD, WILLIAM (1590—1657)
• BRADFORD, WILLIAM (1663—1752)
• BRADFORD, WILLIAM (1827—1892)

BRADFORD (1510?—1555)  , English Protestant martyr, was born at Manchester in the early part of the reign of Henry VIII., and educated at the local grammar school . Being a good penman and accountant, he became secretary to Sir John Harrington, paymaster of the English forces in France . Brad-ford at this time was gay and thoughtless, and to support his extravagance he seems to have appropriated some of the money entrusted to him; but he afterwards made full restitution . In April 1547 he took chambers in the Inner Temple, and began to study law; but finding divinity more congenial, he removed, in the following year, to St Catharine's Hall, Cambridge, where he studied with such assiduity that in little more than a year he was admitted by special grace to the degree of master of arts, and was soon after made fellow of Pembroke Hall, the fellowship being " worth seven pound a year." One of his pupils was John Whitgift . Bishop Ridley, who in '1550 was translated to the see of London, sent for him and appointed him his chaplain . In 1553 he was also made chaplain to Edward VI., and became one of the most popular preachers in the kingdom, earning high praise from John Knox . Soon after the accession of Mary he was arrested on a charge of sedition, and confined in the Tower and the king's bench prison for a year and a half . During this time he wrote several epistles which were dispersed in various parts of the kingdom . He was at last brought to trial (January 1554/5) before the court in which Bishop Gardiner sat as chief, and, refusing to retract his principles, was condemned as a heretic and burnt, with John Leaf, in Smithfield on the 1st of July 1555 . His writings, which consist chiefly of sermons, meditations, tracts, letters and prayers, were edited by A . Townsend for the Parker Society (2 vols . 8vo, Cambridge, 1848-1853) .