Rowland Taylor (sometimes spelled "Tayler") (about 1510 – 9 February 1555) was an English Protestant martyr during the Marian Persecutions.
At the time of his death, he was Rector of Hadleigh in Suffolk. He was burnt at the stake at nearby Aldham Common.
Taylor was born at Rothbury in Northumberland. In 1530, he received his LL.B. degree from the University of Cambridge. From 1531 to 1538 he was principal of Burden Hostel there. In 1534, he received the LL.D. from Cambridge, the same year Martin Luther completed his German Bible. One year later, in 1535, William Tyndale was tried and denounced as a heretic for his new English Bible translation. Tyndale was burned at the stake in 1536.
In the late 1530s Taylor served as Hugh Latimer's chaplain and commissary general of the diocese of Winchester.
In March 1538 Taylor was collated by Latimer to the St Mary's parish church of Hanbury, Worcestershire.
When Latimer resigned, Taylor was taken under the wing of Thomas Cranmer, living with him and (1539) serving as his chaplain. He was ordained by Cranmer and admitted to the parish church of St Swithin's in Worcester. He was thus given his licence to preach and did so in the diocese of London.
On 16 April 1544, he was presented to the living of Hadleigh, Suffolk.
In 1543 the English Parliament banned Tyndale's English version and all public reading of the Bible by laymen. Religious persecution of Protestant clergy, especially by Roman Catholics, intensified in Britain at this time.
In 1546 the Council of Trent, an ecumenical council of the Catholic Church, decreed that the Latin Vulgate was the authoritative version of the Bible.
In the summer of 1547, Taylor was employed as a preacher for the royal visitation within the dioceses of Lincoln, Oxford, Lichfield and Coventry.
On 15 August 1547, he became canon of Rochester, the same year during which King Henry VIII had died in January.
In 1548, Taylor was appointed archdeacon of Bury St Edmunds and preached at the request of the Lord Mayor at Whitsuntide or Pentecost.
Edward VI, who reigned from 1547 to 1553, followed Henry VIII, and in 1549 the Book of Common Prayer became the Protestant liturgical text in England.
In 1550, Taylor was called to serve on a commission against Anabaptists. The same year, he also helped to administer the vacant diocese of Norwich.
In 1551, at age 41, Taylor was made archdeacon of Exeter in the diocese of Exeter, was also appointed one of the Six Preachers of Canterbury Cathedral and was appointed chancellor to Bishop Nicholas Ridley. His leadership was expanded by serving on a commission to revise the ecclesiastical laws.
In 1552, he helped administer the vacant diocese of Worcester.
Taylor's troubles began on 25 July 1553. He was arrested just six days after the new queen, Mary I, ascended the throne. Aside from the fact that Taylor had supported Lady Jane Grey, Mary's rival, he was also charged with heresy for having preached a sermon in Bury St Edmunds denouncing the Roman Catholic practice of clerical celibacy, which required that a priest in holy orders be unmarried. Many English clergymen, including Taylor, had abandoned this teaching since the 1530s as a token of the English Reformation.
Taylor also denounced the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, which is the belief that the two elements (bread and wine) taken during Holy Communion, or the Eucharist, actually become the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Since the Roman Catholic position is that the Eucharist (and the miracle of transubstantiation) is a sacrament commanded by God, anyone denying it, particularly a cleric or pastor, is considered a heretic. This teaching was opposed universally by the Reformed and Protestant Churches, who maintained that, since a sacrament is a sign, it cannot also be the thing signified. For similar reasons relating to the problem of idolatry, Taylor took issue with the Roman Catholic form of the Mass and received much support from the people of Hadleigh.