ROGERS, JOHN (c. 1500-1555), English Protestant martyr, born at Aston, near Birmingham, was educated at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1526. Six years later he was rector of Holy Trinity, Queenhithe, London, and in 1534 went to Antwerp as chaplain to the English meKchants. Here he met William Tyndale, under whose influence he abandoned the Roman Catholic faith, and married an Antwerp lady. After Tyndale's death Rogers pushed on with his predecessor's English version of the Old Testament, which he used as far as 2 Chronicles, em ploying Coverdale's translation (1535) for the remainder and for the Apocrypha. Tyndale s New Testament had been published in 1526. The complete Bible was put out under the pseudonym of Thomas Matthew in 1537; it was printed in Antwerp, and Richard Grafton published the sheets and got leave to sell the edition (1,50o copies) in England. Rogers had little to do with the translation, but he contributed some valuable prefaces and marginal notes. His work was largely used by those who prepared the Great Bible (1539-40), out of which in turn came the Bishop's Bible (1568) and the Authorized Version of 1611. After taking charge of a Protestant congregation in Wittenberg for some years, Rogers returned to England iu 1548, where he published a trans lation of Melanchthon's Considerations of the Augsburg Interim.
In 155o he was presented to the crown livings of St. Margaret Moyses and St. Sepulchre in London, and in 1551 was made a prebendary of St. Paul's, where the dean and chapter soon appointed him divinity lecturer.
On the accession of Mary, Rogers preached at Paul's Cross commending the "true doctrine taught in King Edward's days," and warning his hearers against "pestilent Popery, idolatry and superstition." Ten days after (16th August 1553), he was sum moned before the council and bidden to keep within his own house. In January 1554 Bonner, the new bishop of London, sent him to Newgate, where he lay with John Hooper, Laurence Saunders, John Bradford and others for a year. On January 22, 1555, Rogers with ten others came before the council at Gardiner's house in Southwark, and held his own in the examination that took place. On the 28th and 29th he came before the commission appointed by Cardinal Pole, and was sentenced to death by Gardiner for heretically denying the Christian character of the Church of Rome and the real presence in the sacrament. He met his death on the 4th of February 1555 at Smithfield. He was the first Protestant martyr of Mary's reign, and his friend Brad ford wrote that "he broke the ice valiantly."