Michael Servetus (Spanish: Miguel Serveto Conesa), also known as Miguel Servet, Miguel Serveto, Revés, or Michel de Villeneuve (29 September? 1509 or 1511 – 27 October 1553), was a Spanish theologian, physician, cartographer, and Renaissance humanist. Condemned by Catholics and Protestants alike, he was arrested in Geneva and burnt at the stake as a heretic by order of the Protestant Geneva governing council.
From 1535 to 1681 Tyburn was transformed into a place of cruelty, torture and execution for men and women because of their religious belief. It had become an act of high treason to be a Catholic priest, or to associate with Catholic priests. It was also legal treason to refuse to accept the monarch as “the only Supreme Head on earth of the Church of England”, in the reign of King Henry VIII, from 1534 onwards under Elizabeth I, Charles I and Charles II.
Tyburn had been a place of public spectacle where crowds gathered for entertainment. The martyrs, however, brought a new spirit into the barbarities and butchery of Tyburn. This new spirit was one of joy, spontaneous humour and wholehearted forgiveness of those who had brought them to their life’s end at Tyburn. This spirit flowed over into the crowds around the Tyburn Gallows. When Blessed Thomas Maxfield was dragged to the Tyburn Tree in 1616, the Gallows had been adorned with garlands of fragrant flowers while the ground around it was strewn with sweet-smelling herbs and branches of laurel and bay.
Blessed Philip Powel announced from the Tyburn Tree, “This is the happiest day and the greatest joy that ever befell me, for I am brought hither for no other cause or reason than that I am a Roman Catholic priest and a monk of the Order of St Benedict.” (1646)
Saint Edmund Campion, Jesuit priest, prayed on the scaffold for those responsible for his death - “I recommend your case and mine to Almightie God, the Searcher of hearts, to the end that we may at last be friends in heaven, when all injuries shall be forgotten.” (1581)
Edward Morgan, priest, was reproved by a minister on the scaffold for being so cheerful. The martyr replied - “Why should anyone be offended at my going to heaven cheerfully? For God loves a cheerful giver.” (1642) ref
Matthew 7:5 - for the benefit of those who enjoy pointing fingers of blame.