The Scores of Scientists Who Suffered Severely at the Hands of the Church for Their Theories Include?

Over in the comments at Bob Murphy's blog, George Selgin writes:

"That many of the most illustrious members of this tiny group [of scientific thinkers] suffered severely at the hands of religious persecutors is (or ought to be) notorious."

I do not mean to pick on George, whom I regard as a very bright man, but here he is expressing a bit of "folk history" that I just don't see has much basis in fact. My interest is really about why this idea continues to circulate.

One of the first things our history of science lecturer at King’s College, John Milton, told us was that on the vast majority of scientific topics, the church simply did not care. So when Buridan and Oresme challenged Aristotelian mechanics: the church just did not care at all, one way or the other.

Secondly, on the very few topics it did care about, it was always prepared to regard scripture as figurative, if the literal interpretation could be proven false. (So, since everyone knew the earth was round, the church had done this with the biblical passage mentioning its "four corners": this was just figurative speech.) Thus, with Galileo, church astronomers examined his evidence and found it wanting. (Which it was, frankly: for instance, he thought the tides were caused by the earth’s rotation throwing the seas around, and that they had a 24-hour cycle. And Brahe's heliocentric theory accounted for the phases of Venus. Of course, Galileo was right, but he hadn't proved his case.) Thus they asked him to present heliocentrism as an hypothesis. He agreed, but then reneged, in a book in which he called the current Pope a simpleton. At that point he was subject to a fairly mild house arrest. (I think that was a mistake, but it is good to be clear on just what transpired.)

Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake, but for heretical religious views, not for his scientific ideas. (Again, I am not in favor of death for religious heresy, but it has nothing to do with persecuting scientists.)

Aside from those two, what important figures in the Scientific Revolution "suffered severely" at the hands of a Catholic or Protestant church for their views? Copernicus? No, the church never bothered him at all. Kepler? No, he suffered some by being in the midst of the religious warfare of the Reformation, but no one hindered his scientific work. Descartes? Nothing. Newton? Zilch. Boyle? Niente di niente. Hooke? Nada. Malebranche? Well, he was actually a priest, but he did have one work placed on the index of forbidden books. Huyghens? Died peacefully in his bed, never molested by any church. Halley? No. Leibniz? No persecution I know of.

 And yet, the idea still floats around that many of the leaders of the Scientific Revolution "suffered severely" at the hands of the church. This ought to be notorious.