INCREDIBLE STORY AND A FISHERMAN
R ETAIL giant House of Fraser announced this week it is set to close its iconic stores in Cardiff and Cwmbran. The huge shop on St Mary Street in Cardiff is one of Wales’ best-known department stores.
Many people will have memories of shopping in the maze that is Howells. And many others may have noticed a large plaque on the wall in the menswear department. It reads: Near this spot suffered for the truth March 30th 1555. Rawlins White. A fisherman of this town.
You may have walked passed this many times and given it no thought. You may have even missed the smaller words at the bottom which reads “erected by two Protestants of this town”. The plaque used to adorn the former Bethany Chapel.
So who was the fisherman Rawlins White? The simple answer to that is an absolute maverick...
The year 1555 was bang in the middle of the reign of the Tudor queen Mary I.
Known as “Bloody Mary” among Protestants, she was daughter of Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIII.
At the time, Catholicism was on the march and it was dangerous to shout about your Protestant ways too much.
Fisherman man did not so much uch poke the Cathoholic bear as kick it in the face and laugh.
“During the e reign of Mary the 1st in 1555 5 Cardiff fisherman Rawlins White e was adopting the protestant t creed,” said author and historian Brian Lee whose book Cardiff Remembered talks about the unrepentant Mr White.
Being illiter- r ate himself himself, Rawlins encouraged his son to write and the boy would speak passages out of the bible for his father. It wasn’t long until Mr White has started preaching and leading a small but dedicated group of Protestants.
“According to Rawlins Foxe’s Acts and vince him to run away.
Dr Gray said: “Reading between the lines again, we can see that he even tried to save Rawlins White, keeping him under very lax house arrest in the episcopal palace at Mathern and even encouraging him to escape!”
Obstinate as ever, he refused and was set to be burnt at the stake in Cardiff.
According to Mr Lee, he was returned to Cock’s Tower under the town hall in High Street.
Little remains of the former town hall today.
The medieval and Georgian halls are commemorated by a blue plaque, and the section of the roadway which was wider than the rest of the street (to allow traffic to pass the centrallylocated halls) can still be seen. This jail was not a pleasant place. According to historian Mr Lee, it “was described as a very dark, loathsome and the most vile of prisons. The time he was in that dark cell was believed to be three weeks.”
However, old Rawlins was said to have passed this time with “great cheerfulness and extreme fortitude”.
Knowing his time had come, he asked his wife to send him his wedding garments so he could look his best for the horrific ordeal he was about to endure.
He wore a long shirt, an old coat and leather buskins (a knee- or calflength boot made of leather or cloth which laces closed, but is open across the toe.
The only time his cheerfulness faltered was when he was been led to the stake. Upon seeing his wife and children, tears were said to trickle down his face.
On been led to the stake, he fell down on his knees and kissed the ground.
He said: “Earth unto earth, dust unto dust. You are thy mother and back to thee I shall return.”
When the smith came to wrap the chain around him, he had recaptured “Feeling that he was too old to his smile and composure. le learn this new-fangled business of He told the smith: “I pray you good re reading, he sent his little son to friend, lock the chain fast for it may sc school instead, and the boy read the be that the flesh might strain mightily.”Bibletohisfatherintheevenings B w while they were mending their nets. He even helped the executioner
“Though he could not read, White place the straw around him. le learned much of the Bible by heart When it was set alight, he held a and became a preacher himself.” both his hands over the flames and
However, it wasn’t long before died one of the most horrific deaths a t this humble fisherman started to person can endure. m make some powerful enemies. The precise site in Cardiff where he
“He became very obnoxious is executed is not known. to toward the bishop of Llandaff,” said “Traditionally there are two sites,” Mr Lee, “and he was jailed for 12 said Mr Lee. months at Cardiff Castle.” “One on St John Street (also known
After enduring six months in the as St John Square) and the other is in castle he was moved to Mathern near High Street. Chepstow. The authorities tried to “I was doing some research and I get him to recant his beliefs but he found another reference to say it was refused to do so. Frederick Street. The only bit of that
There is some evidence that the street that remains is by Primark bishop Anthony Kitchin had a bit of a where the cafe is.” soft spot for Rawlins and tried to con- According to Dr Gray, it is difficult
Monuments (better known as the Book of Martyrs) Martyrs), he was a simple Cardiff fisherman,” said former professor of ecclesiastical history at the University of South Wales, Dr Madeleine Gray.
“He heard the Bible being read and preached in Cardiff, probably in the late 1540s or early 1550s, during the reign of Edward VI.