JOHN ROGERS WAS AN ENGLISH PROTESTANT MARTYR

Rogers, John, 1500?–1555, English Protestant martyr, grad. Cambridge, 1526. He became a Roman Catholic priest, but under the influence of William Tyndale, whom he met in Antwerp, he turned (1535) to Protestantism. He employed himself in preparing for the press an English version of the Bible, which he published (1537) under the pseudonym Thomas Matthew. He contributed prefaces and marginal notes, but most of the translation was the work of Tyndale and of Miles Coverdale. Returning (1548) to England, Rogers became (1551) a prebendary of St. Paul's Cathedral, London. On the accession of Mary I he was deprived of his benefices because of anti-Catholic expression in the pulpit and was imprisoned (1554). He was tried and burned at Smithfield as a heretic.