Balthasar Hubmaier: The Leader of the Anabaptists by Henry Clay Vedder.
Balthasar Hubmaier was an Anabaptist theologian and martyr. In 1521, Hubmaier became pastor at Waldshut. While here he began to embrace certain Reformation concepts. By the October Disputation in Zürich (1523), after a brief second stay at Regensburg, he openly championed the Swiss Reformation. Upon his return to Waldshut he began to reform the faith and order of his church and those of his fellow priests. By Easter, 1525, Hubmaier was baptized by Wilhelm Reublin along with 60 of his parishioners and he, in turn baptized some 300 others. The Anabaptist movement in Waldshut was short-lived since a threatened invasion by Austria drove him and his wife from the city.
After imprisonment and torture in Zürich, he managed to escape, a chastened and subdued man. Hubmaier next became the leading pastor in Nikolsburg, Moravia, in 1526 where he won local preachers for Anabaptism and the Lichtenstein barons, as well. It was here that Anabaptism enjoyed the greatest numerical success. After 16 or 17 months, Hubmaier and his wife Elizabeth Hugeline, were arrested by King Ferdinand of Austria, who had recently acquired jurisdiction of Moravia. After a time of imprisonment in Vienna and the Kreuzenstein Castle, where he was tortured on the rack, was tried and convicted of heresy. On 10 March 1528, he was taken to the public square and executed by burning on 10 March 1528, with his wife exhorting him to remain steadfast. His wife Elizabeth, was thrown into the Danube three days later, with a large stone around her neck.
