A witness to the event, the French missionary priest Lourdel, considered that the principal cause was Mwanga's feeling of being despised by the literate Christians who claimed a superior knowledge of religion. Lourdel gave as a secondary cause of Mwanga's action the refusal of the pages to meet traditional royal demands of sexual submission. The king, who by tradition had the power of life and death over his subjects, was angered by this refusal to obey his wishes to have sex with him.
Marie de Kiewet-Hemphill concludes that the immediate pretext, if not the whole cause, was therefore the refusal of the pages to offer themselves to Mwanga Roland Oliver rejects resentment against Christianity as a sufficient reason, since it does not explain why Mwanga took action against these young men and not against prominent chiefs and women among the converts. Sylvia Antonia Nannyonga-Tamusuza draws attention to the same point. J. P. Thoonen in his book on the question agrees with Kiewet-Hemphill's analysis, while recognizing the existence of other political factors. Particularly as some of those that renounced their faith were spared death."
In the week leading to the executions, the Christian Matthias Gayinga rejected the sexual demands of Mwanga's close friend, the Muslim Lutaya, to whom the king had sent him for that purpose. For this he was severely punished, though not killed. His stance was described as a "splendid refusal" by the English missionary A. P. Ashe, who later said it set the spark for later events. His action was followed by the refusal of another convert, Anatole Kirrigwajjo, to accept nomination to a high post "which he could only exercise at the peril of his soul".
While many of the Christian pages often arranged to be missing when Mwanga demanded them, or refused his sexual solicitation outright, one page Muwafi did comply. Mwanga is said to have caught another page teaching Christianity to Muwafi. Mwanga saw this as an attempt "to rob him of his favourite and so far always compliant toy, by teaching him the religion which made them prefer death to submission". Mwanga summoned the pages and asked those who prayed to stand to one side. These, most of whom were between 15 and 30 years old, were then taken on a long journey to execution by being burnt alive. By displaying the courage their Christianity demanded, they helped remove any notion that the new religion was inconsistent with traditional ideals of heroism.
