Recently, I spent a week in London and had some fresh insights into the deeper meaning of Aldersgate. So much had happened there, even before John Wesley’s conversion.

Aldersgate is likely to be the main gate for people going in and out of the city. Just outside the gate is the public execution site. In the days of old, executions were meant to be as visible as possible. They are done publicly as a deterrent.

Smithfield has been the public execution site outside Aldersgate since the 13th century. In 1305, William Wallace, whom Mel Gibson portrayed in the movie Braveheart, was transported to London and hanged at Smithfield.

Queen Mary I, or Bloody Mary, took the throne in 1553 and died in 1558. While her reign was only 5 years, she burned over 280 protestants. These were recorded in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, but a full list can be found on Wikipedia – List of Protestant Martyrs of the English Reformation (Protestants executed under Mary I).

Queen Mary’s goal was to reverse the protestant reformation, which started during her father, King Henry VIII’s reign. After she died in 1558, her re-establishment of Roman Catholicism in England was reversed by her younger sister and successor, Queen Elizabeth I.

Her father, King Henry VIII, had previously ordered over 60 executions of protestants, 15 at Smithfield.

Of the over 280 protestants whom Queen Mary I ordered burned at the stake, there were over 40 protestant martyrs killed in London, and all were at Smithfield.

Here are  other significant happenings at Aldersgate after the reign of Bloody Mary:

• 16th Century – John Day lived in a room within Aldersgate. He was a printer and publisher of protestant literature, sermons and the Book of the Martyrs by John Foxe. He died in 1584.
• 1603 – King James rode through Aldersgate to enter the City of London to take the English crown. This is the same King James that we received the King James Bible.

The inside of the gate was later inscribed “Then shall enter into the gates of this city kings and princes, sitting upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they and their princes, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and this city shall remain for ever.” from Jeremiah 17:25.

• 1738 – John Wesley’s “conversion”. But before his conversion, the Moravians were already meeting regularly at Aldersgate. He received his awakening when they were reading Martin Luther’s Preface to the Book of Romans. 
• 16 January 1783 – John Newton started a fortnightly meeting, “The Eclectic Society” with fellow clergy men. Its first meeting was at the Castle & Falcon Inn along Aldersgate Street. John Newton is the former slave trader who wrote Amazing Grace. 

While John Newton was not fully involved in later meetings due to his old age, he provided the spark that started the meeting. Out of these meetings, birthed the London Missionary Society 1795, which sent out missionaries to the West Indies, China and South East Asia, including Singapore.