Thomas Aikenhead
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"Early in 1697 the clergy had actually succeeded in getting a lad of eighteen, Thomas Aikenhead, hanged for professing deism in general, and in particular for calling the Old Testament “Ezra’s Fables,” ridiculing the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation, and expressing the hope and belief that Christianity would be extinct within a century."--A Short History of Freethought |
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Thomas Aikenhead (c. March 1676 – 8 January 1697) was a Scottish student from Edinburgh, who was prosecuted and executed at the age of 20 on a charge of blasphemy under the Act against Blasphemy 1661 and Act against Blasphemy 1695. He was the last person in Great Britain to be executed for blasphemy. His execution occurred 85 years after the death of Edward Wightman (1612), the last person to be burned at the stake for heresy in England.
See also
- I Am Thomas, a 2016 play based on Aikenhead
- John William Gott, prosecuted for blasphemy and jailed in 1922
- George Holyoake, convicted for blasphemy in a public lecture in 1842
- Scottish Secular Society#Aikenhead Award
- List of people burned as heretics
