Newgate, was declared an incorrigible heretic and burned at Smithfield
(1611). Just a month later, one Wightman was burned at Lichfield, by the
Bishop of Coventry, for heterodox doctrines. It is possible that public
opinion was shocked by these two burnings. They were the last cases in
England of death for unbelief. Puritan intolerance, indeed, passed an
ordinance in 1648, by which all who denied the Trinity, Christ’s
divinity, the inspiration of Scripture, or a future state, were liable
to death, and persons guilty of other heresies, to imprisonment. But
this did not lead to any executions.

The Renaissance age saw the first signs of the beginning of modern
science, but the mediaeval prejudices against the investigation

[87] of nature were not dissipated till the seventeenth century, and in
Italy they continued to a much later period. The history of modern
astronomy begins in 1543, with the publication of the work of Copernicus
revealing the truth about the motions of the earth. The appearance of
this work is important in the history of free thought, because it raised
a clear and definite issue between science and Scripture; and Osiander,
who edited it (Copernicus was dying), forseeing the outcry it would
raise, stated untruly in the preface that the earth’s motion was put
forward only as a hypothesis. The theory was denounced by Catholics and
Reformers, and it did not convince some men (e.g. Bacon) who were not
influenced by theological prejudice. The observations of the Italian
astronomer Galileo de’ Galilei demonstrated the Copernican theory beyond
question. His telescope discovered the moons of Jupiter, and his
observation of the spots in the sun confirmed the earth’s rotation. In
the pulpits of Florence, where he lived under the protection of the
Grand Duke, his sensational discoveries were condemned. “Men of Galilee,
why stand ye gazing up into heaven?” He was then denounced to the Holy