Peter Martyr Vermigli
Peter Martyr Vermigli
1500-1562)
Eliza P. Vermilyea Johnston (1842-1923), Vermigli's 11th great granddaughter
After leaving the Church in 1545, Vermigli became one of the three religious scholars of the Reformation, along with John Calvin and Martin Luther. Archbishop Cranmer invited him to England in 1547 to write the First English Prayer Book.
In 1531,Henry VIII broke from the Roman Church to marry Anne Boleyn. He died in 1547, and his son Edward VI became King and Head of the Church of England.
Edward died in 1553, and Mary, daughter of Catherine of Aragon, became Queen and took vengance on all associated with the Church of England. Vermigli was imprisoned for treason but escaped to Zurich, where he remarried and had a son.
Peter Martyr's great grandson Isaac Vermilye immigrate to America in the early 1600s. In America, the Vermigli names morphed into Vermilyea. (The Vermigli nose lives on.)