William Maldon facts for kids
William Maldon was an English Protestant who lived in the 1500s. He was very determined and taught himself to read so he could read the Bible in English. His own story, called "A young man inhumanly persecuted by his Father for reading ye scripture, in K. Henries time," was published in a famous book. This book was Actes and Monuments, also known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, written by John Foxe.
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William Maldon's Life
William Maldon was born in Chelmsford, England, during the time of Henry VIII. Like many people in the early 1500s, William couldn't read or write. This was also a time when the Bible was being translated into English. One popular English Bible was the Tyndale Bible.
Learning to Read the Bible
Many people who couldn't read learned how to, just so they could read William Tyndale's English Bible. William Maldon was one of these people. He later wrote about the struggles between those who wanted to read the Bible in English and those who didn't want them to.
When William was young, before he learned to read, he would watch "poor men" preach about the New Testament. He listened to them every Sunday. But his father would take him away to attend church services in Latin, a language most people didn't understand.
A Brave Stand for His Beliefs
After William learned to read the Bible in English, he felt strongly about what he had learned. He talked to his mother and told her she was worshipping idols (statues or pictures treated as gods). This made his father very angry. His father beat and whipped him. According to William's story, his mother and brother saved him when his father tried to hang him.
Sharing His Story
William Maldon's story, "A young man inhumanly persecuted by his Father for reading ye scripture, in K. Henries time," was published in John Foxe's famous book, Actes and Monuments, in the late 1500s. Foxe wrote that he received the story directly from "Mr. W. Maldon of Newyngton." This shows that Foxe asked people to share their experiences for his book. A historian named David Daniell said that Maldon's story shows how much people suffered to make the English Bible available.
