2008 - United Kingdom - Day 7 - York

We left our hotel at 8:00 am this morning for York. It took us about an hour to get there. Along the way, Mike talked to us about the language of the bible given to us from Tyndale. It was really interesting. York is one of the oldest cities in England, it was built during the Roman times, and there are Roman walls surrounding the city from 30 AD. We had a local guide give us a 2 hour walking tour of the city. We saw the Minister Cathedral, about 1000 years old. The stained glass is the best in England, preserved since the 1200-1300’s. It wasn’t destroyed during the reformation like almost all the others in England were at that time. We walked down many little lanes and saw other churches and sites. Our guide took to a shrine of a Catholic saint, I can’t even remember her name now, but she was a young woman that was Catholic during the reformation when the rulers in England were protestant. She hid priests in her home and held mass and did all she could to support the Catholics. She was arrested and executed. They killed her by fastening boulder on a large door and crushing her to death. After hearing her story, I couldn’t’ help but cry for her and all of the deaths and martyrs I have heard over the past several days. There were horrible deaths of beheadings, burning at the stake, hanging people in chains until their bodies rot, sawn in half, stretched from hands and legs till you were pulled apart in 4 pieces, and now the crushing. English were cruel people, and whichever religion was in power at the time hunted and killed those who wouldn’t submit. It is so sad, it really depressed me. When she was finished with our tour, she dumped us off in the middle of the city with some maps. We had 3.5 hours of free time. We mostly walked through the parks and walked along the city walls. We got back to the hotel at 5:00 and dinner was served to us again as a buffet at 7:00.