A large congregation gathered in Westminster Abbey today in 1874 for the funeral of David Livingstone (above), the missionary explorer. He had died a year earlier in present-day Zambia and his heart buried under a mpundu tree, but his body was wrapped in bark and a sailcloth and carried across Africa to the coast, before being shipped home to Britain. His servant tried to throw himself into the abbey grave but was stopped by Henry Morton Stanley, the journalist who famously greeted Livingstone with the words, ‘Dr Livingstone, I presume?’ when they met in Africa.
Today in 1521 Martin Luther was tried before Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, at the Diet of Worms, and told to retract his Protestant teaching. Earlier would-be church reformers had been tried and then put in bonfires, so Luther’s trial must have been a fairly terrifying moment. Despite that, he told the Emperor:
‘Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the Pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the scriptures I have quoted, and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me. Amen.’ Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms
The English writer John Foxe died today in 1587. His famous book, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs (as it was popularly known), one of the 16th century’s bestsellers, was a history of Christian martyrdom from the New Testament up to the recent burnings of Protestants by Queen ‘Bloody’ Mary. The book informed several centuries of English anti-Catholicism, especially when it was shortened in the 17th century to just the terrible deaths.
Today in 1506, the cornerstone of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, the biggest church in the world, was laid by Pope Julius II. It was completed 120 years later, in 1626.
Image: National Library of Wales