Throughout the Tudor Period there were many executions, and Henry VIII throughout his
reign ordered around 70,000 to execution scaffold’s around England.
He even sent two of his own wives, but his children would be equally as brutal in their
own ways.
Edward VI, Henry VIII’s successor and son would change the face of English religion
forever.
But Mary I his eldest daughter would become known as Bloody Mary I for the large scale
protestant burnings that occurred with over 200 people being burned at the stake in public
executions that cemented the Tudor Period as one of being a bloodbath.
But there was one woman from Derby, a city in the Midlands who was blind, but for refusing
to recant her Protestant beliefs, she was executed and burned in a large execution.
Join us today as we look at the horrific execution of the blind woman burned by Bloody Mary.
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Joan Waste was born around 1534 in Derby the city where she would spend the majority of
her life, and where she would be killed.
She was born blind and was a twin, and her father was a barber inside of the city.
She was named after her mother, but at the age of 12 despite being unable to see she
had managed to master how to knit very well, and also she worked with her father as a rope
maker and became rather skills at this.
However when Joan was 19, her whole life would be uprooted and changed.
Mary I came onto the throne, and many people across England feared the changes she would
bring.
The Catholic Mary restored Catholicism as England’s religion and also outlawed Protestantism
and made it illegal to hold these beliefs.
As mentioned at least 284 people who were protestant including the former Archbishop
of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer, and Bishops Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley were burned
at the stake and were seen as heretics.
Religious crimes were considered the worst evils in the Tudor times, and they were dealt
with very brutally.
Some were offered chances to recant but decided to go to the stake and die a man or woman
of their principles.
Mary I was struggling at the time to conceive a child and also give birth to one, and following
a phantom pregnancy which disappointed many in England, she believed she was being punished
by God.
Mary believed that God would not grant her a child until she instigated harsher punishments
on religious criminals and Protestants, and further people were burned at the stake.
In some towns, numerous people were burned on the same fire, and these scenes in particular
haunted the people who watched public executions during the Tudor Period.
To see someone burning in front of their eyes was horrific.
Joan Waste held Protestant beliefs, and despite the fact she was disabled and could not see,
the whole law book was thrown at her.
She was called before a Catholic tribunal made up of the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry
Ralph Baines and Chancellor Antony Draycot.
During this trial she was asked to explain herself and her religious beliefs and also
defend herself.
But the judges were not satisfied with the answers she gave, and she spoke out simply
telling people what she believed.
She believed that the Protestant way was the right way, and that she refused to accept
that church services were now being reverted back to Latin, a language which very few across
the nation could understand.
She viewed the English Protestant services as much more rewarding, and with this she
protested against Mary I’s beliefs.
She had also bought a New Testament which had been translated into English and she asked
her friends as she could not see to read it for her.
Joan would then pay them a penny each time for doing this, and she also denied that the
bread and wine could be changed into the body and the blood of christ, a catholic belief.
Joan Wastes’ trial took place in the All saint’s Parish Church, which has today been
rebuilt and is today known as Derby Cathedral.
However for her crimes she was sentenced to death.
It was to be burning at the stake for Joan, like a number of others across the nation.
Today holding different religious beliefs is no issue, but during the 16th century it
was a huge crime and offence.
On the 1st August 1556 she was to be executed, and one the day of her death she walked with
her twin brother and he held her hand and guided her as she walked towards her death
ordeal.
First she was accompanied to church by Anthony Draycot who gave a final sermon for her life
along with other prominent priests.
It was said Draycot stated, ‘"This woman is condemned for denying the Sacrament of
the Altar to be the very body and blood of Christ, really and substantially, and is for
this reason cut off from the body of the Catholic Church", Dr. Draicot began, and went on to
say that "she is not only blind in her bodily eyes, but also blind in the eyes of her soul.
And as her body will soon be consumed with material fire, so her soul will be burned
in Hell with everlasting fire, as soon as it is separated from the body.
There it will remain, world without end."
He then forbade everyone to pray for her, issuing "many terrible threats" against any
that dared to do so.
Finally he gave the order to burn Joan to death.’
Her execution was to take place at Windmill Pit on Burton Road in Derby.
It was said that Joan desired the people to pray for her and said such prayers as she
had learned, and cried upon Christ to have mercy upon her, as long as life served Doctor
Draycot went to his inn, and there laid down and slept during all the time of her execution.’
So the man who sentenced her to death could not bear to witness the proceedings of the
blind lady burning.
Joan was to be burned alive, however she was to be also hanged over the fire with a rope,
which was intended to kill her and then she would be burned on the fire.
But this did not go well.
As Joan was hanged over the fire, the flames rose higher to the point where the rope burned
through and she fell into the fire, and was burned alive.
It would have been a harrowing sight for people to have seen and smelt, and Joan was expected
to suffer for her beliefs and be damned for eternity.
Burning at the stake was incredibly tough, as it would take a number of minutes before
someone succumbed to their fate, and there were many chances for it to have gone wrong.
But on the fire there inside of Derby she was burned alive.
Today there are a number of memorials to Joan Waste, and ironically the place where she
was executed now marks the site of a Roman Catholic Church, that possessed the very beliefs
and ideas that condemned Joan to death.
Later the Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield who ordered her execution was sacked when
Elizabeth I came onto the throne, and was then sent to prison by the Bishop of London.
Draycot who also ordered the killing was a prisoner of Fleet Prison in London and he
then died in 1571.
But the story and execution of Joan Waste was an incredibly tragic and harrowing one,
in which a blind woman of around 22 years of age was burned alive.
She was not old at all when she made her way to her death, and she was a talented and skilled
woman who made the best of the life she had.
She was a talented rope maker, and despite being blind created a good reputation for
herself in the local area.
But ultimately she encountered problems with regards to her religious views, and she was
just one of many who were executed during the short 5 year reign of Bloody Mary for
holding different religious beliefs.
Her story today is one that is often forgotten, but deserves to be told.
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