Thomas Bilney

"Had Bilney's over-scrupulous conscience allowed him to stay quietly at Cambridge a year or two more, he would have found all and more than he contended for accepted by the very men who hounded him on to death. The execution of a man so gentle and harmless as Bilney was peculiarly disgraceful to the government, even if, as most people then admitted, it was right to burn heretics and sacramentaries."

"The significance of Bilney’s execution lies in the fact that on essential points he was an orthodox Roman Catholic."