Did KJV translators persecute others?

The documented evidence that some of the translators of the KJV were involved in the persecution of believers has been requested.

Paine noted that KJV translators George Abbot and Lancelot Andrewes were two of the Church of England divines who urged the burning at the stake of Bartholomew Legate in March of 1611
(MEN BEHIND THE KJB, p. 142). This same source noted that George Abbot presided over the proceedings (p. 93). At its article about Abbot, The standard reference work THE DICTIONARY OF NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY pointed out that Legate and Edward Wightman were brought before the court of George Abbot and that "Abbot was from the first resolved that no mercy should be shown them" (p. 11). This same reference work also noted that in another case involving clergyman Edmund Peacham that Abbot "approved the use of torture" (p. 11).

Alexander McClure noted that prelate Thomas Ravis [another KJV translator] was "a fierce persecutor of the Puritans" (KJV TRANSLATORS REVIVED, p. 150).

McClure also pointed out that Archbishop Richard Bancroft, who was overseer for the translating of the KJV, "was the ruling spirit in that infamous tribunal, the High Commission Court, a sort of British Inquisition" (p. 217).

There were other KJV translators that were members of the Church of England's High Commission Court and Star Chamber that persecuted believers.

 

No one claimed that some of the KJV translators persecuted people for their faith because of the KJV. I did not mean to imply that everyone that the KJV translators persecuted were genuine believers, but they were persecuted for their professed faith. While it is true that Edward Wightman was accused of accepting some heresies, the mere accusation by those who were seeking to justify their burning him at the stake is not solid evidence that the accusations were true. Do you have any reliable documented statements or writings of Wightman himself that proves he actually believed all the things he was accused of? Some of the things that Wightman of which he was accused are contradictory and could not be true. Several of the charges are too various and too vague to be accepted as accurate and are much like the charges that Roman Catholics made against believers.

Phil Stringer, a KJV-only author and fundamental Baptist, observed that Wightman was burned at the stake "for declaring that baptism of infants was an abominable custom" or "for being a Baptist" (FAITHFUL BAPTIST WITNESS, p. 7). In the book MEMORIALS OF BAPTIST MARTYERS, J. Newton Brown noted that among the charges made against Wightman were these; "That the baptizing of infants is an abominable custom; that the Lord's supper and baptism are not to be celebrated as they are not practised in the church of England; and that Christianity is not wholly professed and preached in the church of England, but only in part" (p. 240). William Cathcart pointed out that the "only charges of false doctrine against Mr. Wightman about the truth of which there was no doubt" were the same ones listed by Brown above (BAPTIST ENCYCLOPAEDIA, p. 1241).

Rev. Valentine Wightman, a descendant of Edward Wightman, was a doctrinally sound Baptist pastor in America.

A history of English Baptists by Thomas Crosby
told how King James and his state church persecuted Baptists with fines, imprisonments, dispossessions of property, beatings, expulsions, and even burning at the stake.

Cathcart's BAPTIST ENCYCLOPEDIA noted that King James treated Baptists with "royal barbarity" (p. 75). J. W. Griffith observed that King James and his government "vigorously tried to prevent the preaching of Baptists, driving them into hiding, imprisoning their ministers and deacons and sometimes entire congregations, imposing enormous and ruinous fines on those arrested for unlawful assembly and preaching" (MANUAL OF CHURCH HISTORY, Vol. III, p. 84). J. W. Cramp contended that Baptists suffered severely during the reign of James I (BAPTIST HISTORY, p. 260).

In 1612, Baptist pastor Thomas Helwys returned to England and established a Baptist Church. Hewlys wrote a book in defense of the right of religious liberty and was imprisoned in Newgate Prison by order of King James for distribution of his book (SOUTHWESTERN JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY, April, 1964, pp. 44-45). In 1614, a Baptist named Leonard Busher claimed that "his Majesty's bishops and ministers had been armed and weaponed with fire and sword and not with Scripture" (Goadby, BYE-PATHS IN BAPTIST HISTORY, p. 80).

 

This link you yourself provided confirms the same information that I posted in response to your post. This source indicated that those who accused Wightman were "manifestly 'forgers of lies.'" This source noted that "it was found necessary to blacken the victim."

 

King James I and his Church of England's High Commission Court persecuted many including Puritans, Presbyterians, Baptists, and others.

When the High Commission Court was brought into Scotland in 1610, Scottish reformer George Gillespie compared it to "the Spanish Inquistion" (DISPUTE AGAINST THE ENGLISH POPISH CEREMONIES OBTRUDED ON THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND, p. 183).
Stuart Babbage noted that in 1610, "the House of Commons addressed a Petition to the king for the redreww of grievances arising through the Court
of High Commission" (PURITANISM AND RICHARD BANCROFT, pp. 286-287). Daniel Neal observed that this Court's methods "were almost equal to the Spanish Inquisition" with its "ong imprisonments of ministers without bail or bringing them to trial" (HISTORY OF THE PURITANS, p. xi).

Several of the translators of the Bishops' Bible including Archbishop Matthew Parker had used the High Commission Court to persecute the translators of the Geneva Bible. Surely, the translators of the good Geneva Bible would be accepted as believers. For example, Christopher Goodman, a translator of the Geneva Bible who had been a pastor of the English congregation along with John Know at Geneva, was examined in 1571 by Archbishop Parker, "beaten with three rods, and forbidden to preach" (DNB, VIII, p. 129). Thomas Sampson, another translator of the Geneva Bible, was deprived of his office and imprisoned by the
High Commission Court.

In his book THE RISE AND FALL OF THE HIGH COMMISSION, Roland Usher listed many of the members of the various High Commission Courts.
The names of several of the KJV translators (George Abbot, Lancelot Andrewes, Thomas Bilson, John Bois, Arthur Lake, John Layfield, Nicolas Love, James Montague, John Overall, Thomas Ravis,
Sir Henry Savile, Miles Smith, and Giles Thompson)
were on the High Commission courts that persecuted others.

 

The evidence shows that you made the incorrect allegation. Even if you consider Edward Wightman not to be a believer, there were others whose lives indicate that they were believers that were persecuted by King James I and some of the KJV translators who were members of the High Commission Court. Are you ignoring all the documented evidence provided thus far?

Would you consider Andrew Melville, preacher and the leader of the Scottish Reformation after John Knox, to be a believer?

King James I summoned Andrew Melville to London in 1606, threw him into the Tower, imprisoned him four years, and afterwards forced him into exile. Assisting him in this imprisonment of Andrew Melville was at least two KJV translators. For a while Melville was placed in the custody of KJV translator John Overall and later in that of KJV translator Thomas Bilson. THE DICTIONARY OF NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY noted that part of Melville's confinement was solitary and that "pen, ink, and paper were forbidden him" (Vol. XII, p. 235).