Balthasar Hubmaier (1528)

Hubmaier was the theologian of the Anabaptist radical reform movement.  He was the only one of the movement to earn a doctorate of theology.  He gave the movement the strongest theological statement but it cost him his life.  While theology was attacked in Zurich, he used the theologian of Zurich, Zwingli, to further his stance.  Well, Zwingli, being a strong reformer, didn't care for the radical Anabaptists, and distanced himself from Hubmarier.  This really left him out alone and he felt the pressure to recant his stance.  After further thought, he took back that recanting again.  They figured he needed a little time in pain to clear up his theology.  He again recanted!  He would write a short apology "I may err, I am a man, but a heretic I cannot be...Oh God, pardon me my weakness."  I believe him whole heartedly. Nobody knows what they would do under torture.  I cant blame him.  He eventually left and taught in freedom as he believed.  Trouble found him and he would be burned at the stake and his wife thrown into the Danube River with a rock around her neck.  To be fair, their persecutors were reformers as well.