Olivier Willemss, of Nimeguen, Burnt Alive for the Practice of the Evangelical Truth, Together with Two Young Maidens, in the Year 1574

Olivier Willemss, born at Nimeguen, educated in the schools, and having become pastor of Leeuwen, a village between Nimeguen and Tiel, began at times to show scruples about reading the mass, and about other Romish institutions. This aroused suspicion, and so, by the advice of well-meaning friends, he fled to the country of Cleves. Having entered into the communion of the Anabaptists there, he married a certain widow from Antwerp (likewise a fugitive on account of persecution), and, in the hope of greater freedom through a lessening of the bloody decrees, returned with her to Antwerp and settled down in the Steenhouwdersvest.

His wife meanwhile gave birth to two sons, and the report of it, together with the circumstance that the children were not brought to baptism, brought them into rumor and suspicion of heresy, so that, after accusation, in the beginning of the year 1574 (the children being then a year and three months old), they were put into prison.

A few days afterward, on Friday, the 22nd of January, this good and upright man, Olivier Willemss, because of his faith, because he had received baptism in his adult years, and because he had sold certain good and edifying books banned by the papists, was condemned to death and the fire, to be burned alive. He steadfastly suffered it the following day, having commended his soul into the hands of God.

His wife, through a certain circumstance that need not be related here, escaped out of prison, and at last fell asleep in the Lord, a God-fearing and godly woman, in the eighty-fifth year of her age.