Reverend John Rogers (c. 1500 – 1555) Vicar of St Sepulchre’s, Reader of St Paul’s, Protestant Reformer, Author and Publisher of 1st Edition of the “Thomas Matthew” Bible, Protestant Martyr

Post author By Steven Wood Collins
Post date November 18, 2021
113 Comments on Reverend John Rogers (c. 1500 – 1555) Vicar of St Sepulchre’s, Reader of St Paul’s, Protestant Reformer, Author and Publisher of 1st Edition of the “Thomas Matthew” Bible, Protestant Martyr

Oxford University scholars universally agree that Reverend John Rogers both authored and published the first English language edition of the Holy Bible authorized by the Church of England. At the recommendation of Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cramner and Thomas Cromwell, King Henry VIII authorized and licensed the publication of the Thomas Matthew Holy Bible in 1437. The 1,500 copies Thomas published in the first print run went mainly to the clergy. John’s bible formed the cornerstone of Henry’s Anglican Church. The current version of the King James Bible is a derivation of the Thomas Matthew Holy Bible.

After his conversion to Protestantism at the behest of Oxford scholar William Tyndale (1484 – 1536), Tyndale tasked John to assist him in the compilation of a loose assemblage of biblical texts, all of which were written in either Greek or Hebrew, into a unified manuscript organized as two parts, namely, the Old and New Testament. John later translated the completed manuscript into English and added the Song of Manasses to the Apocrypha.

King Henry VIII had Tyndale convicted and executed for heresy because of his opposition to his divorce petition filed against Catherine of Aragon. He was strangled to death and then burned at the stake the year before John published his manuscript.

The reason John published the book under a pseudonym is attributed to his desire to distance himself as the legitimate author. These were dangerous times for Catholics and Protestants alike. To wit, it didn’t take much to meet a grisly death for just about any reason under the monarchal Sun. Try as he might, John nevertheless met one anyway when Queen Mary I, Henry VIII’s daughter, had him burned at the stake at Smithfield as a consequence of his refusal to accept the “Christian character” of the Church of Rome. His was the first Protestant execution under her reign. He spent a year confined to the infamous Newgate Prison before his death.

Cardinal Reginald Pole (1500 – 1558), the last Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury, oversaw both his heresy conviction and martyrdom. He held the office of Chancellor of Oxford University from 1556 to 1558, the year of his death. Pole’s mother, Blessed Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, was the last Plantagenet heir pretender to the throne. King Henry VIII saw that in having her beheaded in the Tower of London on 27 May 1541.

Several of John’s direct descendants immigrated to America during the 17th century. Among them was Reverend John Roger (1705 – 1755) of Boxford, Massachusetts. He, his son, and his grandson all earned B.A.s from Harvard College (his grandson practiced medicine as a physician).

John Rogers (1630 – 1684) was the first of their branch of the lineage to immigrate to America from England. Born in Coggeshall, England, he immigrated to America at the age of nineteen. He later earned both a B.A. (Class of 1642) and an M.A. from Harvard College. Two years before his death he served as the 6th President of America’s first institution of higher education.

Thomas Rogers (1572 – 1621) was an agnatic descendant of Reverend Rogers’ brother William Rogers (1510 – 1553). He brought his son Joseph with him to America from Holland on the Mayflower voyage of 1620. He co-signed the Mayflower Compact en route. Thomas perished during the harsh winter of 1620-1621. His wife Alice died the following year in Leiden, Holland. She remained with her five children in Holland. Many of them returned to England sometime during their lifetimes. Joseph stayed in America and fathered many children.

Lutheran theologian Casiodoro de Reina authored the first Protestant version of the Bible translated into Spanish. Published in Switzerland in 1569, Reina’s Bible was revised under the editorial supervision of Cipriano de Valera in 1602.

The King James Bible was the creation of King James I Stuart (1566 – 1625) as an official version of the Anglican Church Bible, perhaps to curry favor with his Protestant subjects following his tenuous monarchal advent in succession of the Tudor dynasty..

Reverend Rogers was an agnatic descendant of Sveidi Heytirsson, Sea King (650 – 710), and Robert “Guiscard” de Hauteville, Duke of Apulia and Calabria (1015 – 1085).

By Steven Wood Collins

I spent most of my life unaware of my ancestral heritage. Sure, I knew of the personal history of my more immediate relatives; but beyond that, I never had any inkling as to my ancestral heritage. Then one day many years ago my sister said to me, “I sometimes wonder about our family background.” And so my quest to discover our genealogical roots commenced.

I started building my family tree with the very basic relationships, going back in time from my grandparents, one ancestor at a time. That initial effort proved to be the hardest part of the pursuit, mainly due to my lack of expertise as a novice genealogical researcher. As I gained familiarity with the databases and how to efficiently mine them, my progress gained ever-increasing momentum. Today, The Patricians! tree (Ancestry.com) contains nearly 120,000 individuals, stretching over 135 generations, 5,800 of which are my direct ancestors in a genealogical sense.

During this trek back in time, I encountered fascinating figures in both history and obscurity. This blog contains many stories about their genealogical relationship to me (and many of you). By far and away, as a student of history, the historically obscure individuals are of particular interest to me. I cite Baron “Blue Beard” Montmorency-Laval de Rais (1405 – 1440) as an example of a historically maligned personage whose real contribution to history, as both a playwright and hero of France, has yet to be properly recognized. Another example is Earl Edward de Vere (1550 – 1604), who’s yet to gain widespread recognition as the actual author of the body of literary work wrongly ascribed to William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616).

My life-long interest in international economics and finance continues unabated. I primarily demonstrate this professional involvement as a contributor to the Long Room, the members-only international finance professionals' forum hosted by the Financial Times of London.

I'm an avid recreational scuba diver who enjoys traveling to exotic dive sites. My love of the sea and marine life gives me an unbounded appreciation and support of “green” issues, especially those devoted to the conservation of endangered species and coral reefs.

He continually posts results of his personal genealogical research to his Goodreads Authors Blog. Entitled The Patricians - The Ancestral Heritage of Steven Wood Collins, the work represents thousand of hours of his research efforts and related commentary.

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