St. Edmund Campion (1540-1581)

God did not vainly promise by the mouth of Isaiah, that queens should be the nursing mothers of the church . . . in my opinion it would not be lawful to unsettle governments which are ordained by the peculiar providence of God.

--- John Calvin to William Cecil, after 29 January 1559 ---

[biographical information was obtained in most cases from Wikipedia or the Catholic Encyclopedia; links to articles are in the caption names. The martyrs are listed chronologically by date of execution. All are English except where noted]

[See the Wikipedia article for a gruesome description of the English punishment of being hanged, drawn, and quartered]

Queen Elizabeth is often regarded as a tolerant queen, but she was arguably even more intolerant and bloodthirsty (towards Catholics) than her father, the Butcher-Tyrant Henry VIII. During her reign (17 November 1558 - 24 March 1603), there were 312 executions (most involving horrible prolonged tortures) or confessors' deaths rotting away or starving to death in prisons for the "treasonous crime" of being Catholic. That is counting English victims only. There were also about 210 Irish victims, for a grand total of 522 martyrs of the Catholic faith under "Good Queen Bess". Henry VIII averaged about 16 executions or horrible starving deaths of Catholics a year, after he started murdering them in 1534. Elizabeth averaged almost 12 per year for her entire 44 years and and 4 months reign. So she showed herself on average to be about 75% as savage and vicious as her illustrious father, in terms of the frequency and rate of the butchery.

The averages are somewhat deceptive, though, as there were 59 English and Irish martyrdoms in the years 1558 to 1579, or about 2.8 per year average. Elizabeth was just getting warmed up for the real bloodbath. After 1585 it was "treason" to be a priest and to set foot in England at all. If we do the averages for 1580-1603 it comes out to 20 martyrdoms a year, which rate puts even Henry the Butcher to shame.


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Richard Coppinger

Benedictine. Died in prison in 1558.

Bishop Ralph Bayle
Bishop Cuthbert Turnstall (or, Tunstall)

Died on 18 November 1559 in prison.

Bishop Owen Oglethorpe

Died on 31 December 1559 in prison.

Thomas Slythurst

Priest. Died in the Tower of London, 1560.

Bishop John White

Died on 12 January, 1560 in prison.

William Chedsey

Priest. Died in a London prison in 1561.

Sir Edward Waldegrave

Layman. Died in a London prison in 1561.

Agnes Johnson

Layman. Died in a York prison in 1561.

John Fryer (or, Frier)

Layman. Died in a London prison in 1563.

Bishop Richard Pate

Died on 23 November 1565 in prison.

Bishop David Poole

Died in May, 1568 in prison.

Bishop Edmund Bonner

Born c. 1500. Prior to 1547 he had shown himself entirely subservient to the sovereign, supporting him in the matter of the divorce, approving of the suppression of the religious houses, taking the oath of Supremacy which Fisher and More refused at the cost of life itself, and accepting schismatical consecration and institution. But while acting in this way, he had always resisted the innovations of the Reformers, and held to the doctrines of the old religion. Therefore from the first he put himself in opposition to the religious changes introduced by Protector Somerset and Archbishop Cranmer. When ordered to preach at St. Paul's Cross he did so, but with such significant omissions in the matter which had been prescribed touching the king's authority, that he was finally deprived of his see and sent as a prisoner to the Marshalsea. Here he remained till the accession of Mary in 1553. When Elizab eth ascended to the throne he was ordered to resign the bishopric, which he refused to do, adding that he preferred death. He was then deprived of the office and went for a time to Westminster Abbey. On 20th April, 1560, he was sent as a prisoner to the Marshalsea.

During the next two years representatives of the reforming party frequently clamored for the execution of Bonner and the other imprisoned bishops. When the Parliament of 1563 met, a new Act was passed by which the first refusal of the oath of royal supremacy was praemunire, the second, high treason. The bishops had refused the oath once, so that by this Act, which became law on 10th April, their next refusal of the oath might be followed by their death. On 24th April, the Spanish Ambassador writes that Bonner and some others had been already called upon to take the oath. Partly owing to the intervention of the emperor and partly to an outbreak of the plague, no further steps seem to have been taken at the time. A year later, on 29th April, 1564 the oath was again tendered to Bonner by Horne, the Anglican Bishop of Winchester. This he firmly refused but the interference of the Spanish ambassador and his own readiness of resource saved immediate consequences.

Four times a year for three years he was forced to in the courts at Westminster only to be further remanded. The last of these appearances took place in the Michaelmas term of 1568, so that the last year of the bishop's life was spent in the peace of his prison. His demeanor during his long imprisonment was remarkable for unfailing cheerfulness. The end came on 5th September, 1569, when he died in the Marshalsea.

Bishop Gilbert Bourne

In 1545 he became a prebendary of St. Paul's, and in 1549 Archdeacon of Bedford with the living of High Ongar in Essex. At the time in question the holding of such preferments involved at least some acceptance of the religious changes effected under Henry VIII and his successor. However, like many others who then externally submitted, Bourne seems to have always been a Catholic at heart, and the sincerity of his return to the old religion under Mary was proved later by his unalterable firmness under persecution. During his brief episcopate he laboured zealously for the restoration of the Catholic religion, although towards heretics, as even Godwin, a Protestant, admits, he always used kindness rather than severity, nor do any seem to have been executed in his diocese.

At the beginning of Elizabeth's reign Bourne was kept away from London by illness and official duties, and he is only mentioned once as present in the Parliament. For this reason he was one of the last bishops to be deposed, and he was even named amongst those first commissioned to consecrate Parker, appointed primate of the queen's new hierarchy. On his refusal, and on his rejection of the Supremacy Oath, which four Somersetshire justices were commissioned on 18 October, 1559, to administer, his deprivation followed. For a little time he still was left in Somerset, apparently a prisoner on parole; but on 31 May, 1560, he received a summons to appear within twelve days before Parker and the Commissioners in London. He set out, as his reply to Parker shows, well knowing what to expect, and was committed on 18 June a close prisoner to the Tower, where already five of his brother prelates were immured. There in solitary confinement, for the most part, he remained three years, when an outbreak of the plague in September, 1563, caused him and his companions to be for a time transferred into the perhaps equally objectionable keeping of certain of their Protestant successors; Bourne himself being committed to that apparently of Bullingham of Lincoln.

Thus began that continual "tossing and shifting" of the deposed prelates "from one keeper to another, from one prison to another", which Cardinal Allen, who had every means of knowing, describes as one part of their "martyrdom". Accordingly we find the Council, in June, 1565, sending them all back to the Tower, although a little later in a letter of Parker (January 1566), Bullingham is mentioned as though again for a time Bishop Bourne's actual or intended keeper, whilst all the captive prelates continue during the next two years to be referred to as then in the public prisons. After nearly ten years of this suffering existence Bishop Bourne expired 10 September, 1569, at Silverton in Devonshire.

Thomas Bishop
Simon Digby
John Fulthrope (or, Fulthorpe)
John Hall
Christopher Norton
Thomas Norton
Robert Pennyman
Oswald Wilkinson

Laymen who were executed in 1569 or 1570 as a result of the Northern Rising.

Anthony Draycott

Priest. Died in a London prison in 1570.

Blessed Thomas Plumtree

Priest and chaplain to northern insurgents in the Catholic Rising of the North against the repressions of Queen Elizabeth I. Captured when the revolt failed completely, he was arrested at the altar, and charged with celebrating Mass. Offered his freedom if he would denounce Catholicism; he declined and was hanged on 4 February 1570 in the market place at Durham Castle.

Blessed John Felton

On 24 or 25 May 1570, Felton affixed a copy of the Bull of St. Pius V excommunicating the queen to the gates of the Bishop of London's palace near St. Paul's. He was a wealthy gentleman of Norfolk extraction, and married a lady who had been maid of honour to Queen Mary and playmate of Queen Elizabeth. On 26 May 1570 he was arrested and taken to the Tower, where he was thrice racked, though he from the first confessed and gloried in his deed. He was condemned on 4 August and executed in St. Paul's Churchyard, London on 8 August, 1570. He was cut down alive, and his daughter says that he uttered the holy name of Jesus once or twice when the hangman had his heart in his hand.

Bishop Thomas Thurlby (or, Thirlby)

Died in prison on 26 August, 1570.

Bishop James Thurberville (or, Turberville)

Died in prison on 1 November 1570.

John Boxall

Priest. Died in a London prison in 1571.

Nicholas Grene

Priest. Died in a York prison in 1571.

Blessed John Story (or, Storey)

Member of the English Parliment in 1547. Opposed anti-Catholic laws enacted by King Edward VI. Imprisoned 1548-1550 for opposed the Bill of Uniformity. When Queen Mary was on the throne, Story was one of her most active agents in prosecuting heretics, and was one of her proctors at the trial of Cranmer at Oxford in 1555. In 1560 he opposed the Bill of Supremacy , and incurred the ire of Queen Elizabeth. In August 1570, he was locked in the Tower of London and repeatedly tortured (including racking). Indicted on 26 May 1571 for conspiring against the Queen's life. Throughout his misery, John bore his tortures with fortitude and claimed his innocence. He was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn on the 1st of June 1571.

Blessed Thomas Percy

Born in 1528. Earl of Northumberland. On Elizabeth's accession the earl, whose steadfast loyalty to the Catholic Church was known, was kept in the North while the anti-Catholic measures of Elizabeth's first Parliament were passed. But the systematic persecution of the Catholics rendered their position most difficult, and in the autumn of 1569 the Catholic gentry in the North, stirred up by rumours of the approaching excommunication of Elizabeth, were planning to liberate Mary, Queen of Scots, and obtain liberty of worship. After a brief success the rising failed, and Thomas fled to Scotland, where he was captured and, after three years, sold to the English Government. He was conducted to York and beheaded on 22 August, 1572, refusing to save his life by abandoning his religion.

Thomas Sedgwick

Priest. Died in a Yorkshire prison in 1573.

Blessed Thomas Woodhouse

Priest. On 14 May, 1561, he was committed to the Fleet, London, having been arrested while saying Mass. For the rest of his life he remained in custody, uncompromising in his opposition to heresy, saying Mass in secret daily, reciting his Office regularly, and thirsting for martyrdom; but treated with considerable leniency till on 19 November, 1572, he sent the prison washerwoman to Lord Burghley's house with his famous letter. In it he begs him to seek reconciliation with the pope and earnestly to "persuade the Lady Elizabeth, who for her own great disobedience is most justly deposed, to submit herself unto her spiritual prince and father". Some days later in a personal interview he used equally definite language. Confined then by himself he wrote "divers papers, persuading men to the true faith and obedience", which he signed, tied to stones, and flung into the street. Once, when he had denied the queen's title, someone said, "If you saw her Majesty, you would not say so, for her Majesty is great". "But the Majesty of God is greater", he answered. He was executed at Tyburn on 19 June, 1573, being disembowelled alive.

Thomas Gabyt

Cistercian. Executed in 1575.

Nicholas Harpsfield

Priest. Died in a London prison in 1575.

St. Cuthbert Mayne

Born 1544. Mayne was ordained a priest at Douai in 1575 and on February 7 in the following year he obtained the degree of Bachelor of Theology of Douai University. Shortly afterwards, on April 24, 1576, he left for the English mission. Elizabeth I's agents quickly became aware of Mayne's presence in the area and the authorities began a systematic search for him in June. The high sheriff, the "undeviatingly protestant" Sir Richard Grenville, conducted an unauthorised raid on Tregian's house on June 8, 1577. On gaining entry, Grenville discovered a Catholic devotional article, an Agnus Dei round Mayne's neck, and took him into custody. The jury found Mayne guilty of high treason on all counts, and accordingly he was sentenced to be hung, drawn and quartered. Mayne responded, "Deo gratias". On the night of November 27 Mayne's cell was reported by his fellow prisoners to have become full of a "great light". Before being brought to the place of execution, Mayne engaged in an inconclusive disputation with certain protestant ministers, and was offered his life in return for a renunciation of his religion and an acknowledgment of the supremacy of the queen as head of the church. Declining both offers, he kissed a copy of the bible, declaring that, "the queen neither ever was, nor is, nor ever shall be, the head of the church of England". Mayne was executed on November 29, 1577. It is unclear if he died on the gibbet. In any case, he was unconscious during the disembowelling.

Blessed John Nelson

Born 1534. Ordained as a Jesuit in 1576. Executed at Tyburn on February 3, 1578. On his execution day, he refused several Protestant ministers after meeting family members. Taken to Tyburn and was allowed to speak before the bystanders, who were mostly hostile in the historically Protestant London. He refused to ask pardon of the Queen and asked any Catholics in the crowd to pray with him as he recited several common prayers in Latin. He was hung and cut down alive, his heart cut out, then quartered.

Blessed Thomas Nelson

Jesuit student. Hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn on February 3, 1578.

Bishop Nicholas Heath

Archbishop of York. Died in prison in December 1578.

Thomas Layne

Layman. Died in a York prison in 1579.

Blessed Thomas Sherwood

Born in 1552. Layman. Racked with a view to extracting details of houses where Mass was celebrated, Thomas kept silent. As a result he was then thrown into a dungeon to rot, and the inevitable sentence of hanging, drawing and quartering was carried out at Tyburn on February 7, 1579.

Henry Cole

Born c. 1500. Priest. During Elizabeth's reign he remained true to the Catholic Faith and took part in the discussions begun at Westminster in 1559. Then began his sufferings: first, he was fined 500 marks ($1600), then deprived of all his preferments, committed to the Tower (20 May, 1560), and finally removed to the Fleet (10 June), where he remained for nearly twenty years, until his death in February 1579 (or February 1580).

Mr. Ailworth (or, Aylword)

Admitted Catholics to Mass at his house; was arrested, and died after eight days, 1580.

John Cooper

Probably a distributor of Catholic books, arrested at Dover and sent to the Tower, died of "hunger, cold, and stench", 1580.

Robert Dimock (or, Dymoke)

Arrested at Mass, and perished after a few weeks' imprisonment at Lincoln, 11 September, 1580.

John Molineaux

Layman. Died in a London prison in 1581.

John Constable

Layman. Died in a York prison in 1581.

Blessed Everald Hanse

Ordained in 1581. As yet there was no law against priests, and to satisfy the hypocritical professions of the persecutors, it was necessary to find some treason of which he was guilty. He was asked in court at the Newgate Sessions, what he thought of the pope's authority, and on his admitting that he believed him "to have the same authority now as he had a hundred years before", he was further asked whether the pope had not erred (i.e. sinned) in declaring Elizabeth excommunicate, to which he answered, "I hope not." His words were at once written down as his indictment, and when he was further asked whether he wished others to believe as he did, he said "I would have all to believe the Catholic faith as I do." A second count was then added that he desired to make others also traitors like himself. He was at once found guilty of "persuasion" which was high treason by 23 Elizabeth. He was therefore in due course sentenced and executed at Tyburn on 31 July, 1581. The martyr's last words were "O happy day!" and his constancy throughout "was a matter of great edification to the good".

St. Alexander Briant

Born c. 1556. He entered the English College at Reims, and was ordained priest 29 March 1578. Assigned to the English mission in August of the following year he labored with zeal in his own county of Somersetshire. A party of the persecution, searching for Father Parsons, placed Alexander Briant under arrest on 28 April 1581, in the hope of extorting information. After fruitless attempts to this end at Counter Prison, London, he was taken to the Tower where he was subjected to excruciating tortures. To the rack, starvation, and cold was added the inhuman forcing of needles under the nails.With six other priests he was arraigned, 16 November 1581, in Queen's Bench, Westminster, on the charge of high treason, and condemned to death. The details of this last great suffering [hanged, drawn, and quartered], which occurred on the 1 December [1581] following, like those of the previous torture, are revolting. In his letter to the Jesuit Fathers he protests that he felt no pain during the tortures he underwent, and adds: "Whether this that I say be miraculous or no, God knoweth".

St. Edmund Campion

Born January 24, 1540. Jesuit priest. In 1571, Campion [went] to Douai in the Low Countries (now France) where he was reconciled to the Catholic Church and received the Eucharist that he had denied himself for the last 12 years. He entered the English College founded by William Allen, another Oxford religious refugee. Campion finally entered England in the guise of a jewel merchant. He arrived in London on June 24, 1580, and at once began to preach. He led a hunted life, preaching and ministering to Catholics in Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, and Lancashire. On his way to Norfolk, he stopped at Lyford in Berkshire, where he preached on July 14 and the following day, by popular request. Here, he was captured by a spy and taken to London with his arms pinioned and bearing on his hat a paper with the inscription, "Campion, the Seditious Jesuit".

Committed to the Tower of London, he was questioned in the presence of Elizabeth, who asked him if he acknowledged her to be the true Queen of England. He replied in the affirmative, and she offered him wealth and dignities, but on conditions which his conscience could not allow. (To reject his Catholic faith.) He was kept a long time in prison, twice racked (by order of the Council but certainly with Elizabeth's consent), and every effort was made to shake his constancy. Despite the effect of a false rumour of retraction and a forged confession, his adversaries in despair summoned him to four public conferences (September 1, 18, 23 and 27, 1581).

Although still suffering from his treatment, and allowed neither time nor books for preparation, he bore himself so easily and readily that he won the admiration of most of the audience. Tortured again on October 31, he was indicted at Westminster on a charge of having conspired, along with others, at Rome and Reims to raise a sedition in the realm and dethrone the Queen. The great saint stated at the close of his "trial":

In condemning us, you condemn all your own ancestors -- all the ancient priests, bishops, and kings -- all that was once the glory of England, the island of saints, and the most devoted child of the See of Peter. For what have we taught, however you may qualify it with the odious name of treason, that they did not uniformly teach? To be condemned with these old lights -- not of England only, but of the world -- by their degenerate descendants, is bot gladness and glory to us. God lives; posterity will live; their judgment is not so liable to corruption as that of those who are now going to sentence us to death.

He answered the sentence of the traitor's death with the Te Deum laudamus, and, after spending his last days in prayer, was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn on December 1, 1581.

St. Ralph Sherwin

In 1580, he was arrested while preaching in the house of Nicholas Roscarrock in was transferred to the Born 1550. Converted to Catholicism in 1575 and fled abroad to the English College at Douai, where he was ordained a priest by the Bishop of Cambrai on 23 March 1577. On 9 NovemberLondon and imprisoned in the Marshalsea, where he converted many fellow prisoners, and on 4 December was transferred to the Tower of London, where he was tortured on the rack and then laid out in the snow. He is said to have been personally offered a bishopric by Elizabeth I if he apostatised, but refused. After spending a year in prison he was finally brought to trial on a trumped up charge of treasonable conspiracy. On 1 December 1581 he was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn.

St. John Payne

Born 1532. Early in July, 1581, he was arrested in Warwickshire whilst staying on the estate of Lady Petre (widow of John Petre, 18th Baron Petre), through the efforts of the informer George "Judas" Eliot (a known criminal, murderer, rapist and thief, who made a career out of denouncing Catholics and priests for bounty). He was racked on August 14, and again on October 31. Paine was indicted at Chelmsford on March 22 on a charge of treason for conspiring to murder the Queen and her leading officers and install Mary, Queen of Scots on the throne. Paine denied the charges, and affirmed his loyalty to the Queen in all that was lawful (ie not contrary to his Catholicism or allegiance to the pope), contesting the reliability of the murderer Eliot. At his execution on the morning of the Monday April 2 [1582] (9 months after his imprisonment), he was dragged from prison on a hurdle to the place of execution and first prayed on his knees for almost half an hour and then kissed the scaffold, made a profession of faith and declared his innocence. The government's intentions for a smooth execution with minimal trouble and maximum propaganda value had failed - indeed, the crowd had become so sympathetic to Paine that they hung on his feet to speed his death and prevented the infliction of the quartering until he was dead.

Blessed Thomas Ford

Ordained in 1573. On July 17, 1581, he was arrested and on July 22nd of that same year, he was put in the Tower, where he was tortured. He was brought to court on Novermber 16th with a faked charge of conspiracy. It said he had conspired in places he had never been (Rome and Rheims), on days he had been in England. Executed on May 28, 1582.

Blessed Robert Johnson

Priest. Racked on December 16, 1580 and put in a dungeon until his trial on November 14, 1581. He was condemned on November 20, and executed on May 28, 1582.

Blessed John Shert

Ordained in 1579. Executed on May 28, 1582.

Blessed Thomas Cottam

Born 1549. Convert. Ordained in 1580. In June 1580 he started with four companions for England. Cottam was soon committed "close prisoner" to the Marshalsea, where he perhaps said his first Mass. After being tortured, he was removed, 4 December, 1580 to the Tower, where he endured the rack and the "scavenger's Daughter". On 30 May, 1582 he was drawn to Tyburn and executed.

Blessed William Filby

Born between 1557 and 1560. Ordained in 1581. He was arrested in July 1581, committed to the Tower, removed 14 August to the Marshalsea, and thence back to the Tower again. He was sentenced 17 November, and from that date till he died was loaded with manacles. He was also deprived of his bedding for two months, and was executed at Tyburn, 30 May, 1582.

St. Luke Kirby

Born c. 1549. Convert. Ordained in 1577. In June of 1580, he was arrested on landing at Dover, and committed to the Gatehouse, Westminster. On December 4th, he was transferred to the Tower, where he was subjected to the "Scavenger's Daughter" for more than an hour on December 9th. Kirby was condemned on November 17, 1581, and from April 2nd until the day he died [30 May 1582], he was put in irons.

Blessed Laurence Richardson

Ordained in 1577. He was sent on the mission 27 July 1577, and laboured in Lancashire. He was arrested in London on his way to France and imprisoned in Newgate, where he remained until the day of his indictment, 16 November, 1581, when he was committed to the Queen's Bench Prison, and on the day of his condemnation, 17 November, to the Tower, where he had no bedding for two months. He was executed at Tyburn, 30 May, 1582.

Blessed Richard Kirkman

Ordained in 1579. He was arrested on 8 August, 1582, and seems to have been arraigned a day or two after under 23 Eliz. c. 1. Executed at York on 22 August, 1582.

Blessed William Lacey

After fourteen years' persecution for his faith, which included imprisonment at Hull, and after the death of his wife, he went abroad and was ordained in 1580. On 10 May, 1581, he was at Loreto on his way to England. He was arrested after a Mass said by Thomas Bell, afterwards an apostate, in York Castle, 22 July, 1582. He suffered great hardships, being loaded with heavy irons, confined in an underground dungeon, and subjected to numerous examinations. He was arraigned on 11 August, probably under 13 Eliz. cc. 2 and 3. Executed at York on 22 August, 1582.

Blessed James Thompson (or, Hudson)

Ordained 1581. He was arrested at York on 11 August, 1582. On being taken before the Council of the North he frankly confessed his priesthood. He was then loaded with double irons and was imprisoned, first in a private prison, then in the castle. On 25 November he was brought to the bar and condemned to the penalties of high treason. Three days later [28 November 1582] he suffered with great joy and tranquillity at the Knavesmire, protesting that he had never plotted against the queen, and that he died in and for Catholic Faith. While he was hanging, he first raised his hands to heaven, then beat his breast with his right hand, and finally made a great sign of cross. In spite of his sentence, he was neither disembowelled nor quartered, but was buried under the gallows.

Thomas Ackridge

Franciscan. Died in prison in 1583.

Thurstan Arrowsmith

Layman. Died in prison in 1583.

James Laburne

Layman(?). Executed in 1583.

Thomas Mudde

Cistercian. Died in prison in 1583.

Blessed William Hart

Ordained in 1581. He was betrayed by an apostate on Christmas Day, 1582, thrown into an underground dungeon, and put into double irons. Executed at York, 15 March, 1583.

Blessed Richard Thirkeld

Ordained in 1579. On the eve of the Annunciation, 1583, he was arrested while visiting one of the Catholic prisoners in the Ousebridge Kidcote, York, and at once confessed his priesthood, both to the pursuivants, who arrested him, and to the mayor before whom he was brought, and for the night was lodged in the house of the high sheriff. The next day his trial took place, at which he managed to appear in cassock and biretta. The charge was one of having reconciled the queen's subjects to the Church of Rome. He was found guilty on 27 May and condemned 28 May. He spent the night in instructing his fellow-prisoners, and the morning of his condemnation in upholding the faith and constancy of those who were brought to the bar. Executed at York on 29 May, 1583.

Blessed John Bodey (or, Bodley)

Born 1549. Convert and lay schoolmaster. Arrested in 1580, and spent three years in prison in Winchester. Hanged, drawn, and quartered on 2 November 1583 at Andover, England; his dying words were Jesu, Jesu, esto mihi Jesus. He wrote from prison, about six weeks before his martyrdom: "We consider that iron for this cause borne on earth shall surmount gold and, precious stones in Heaven. That is our mark, that is our desire. In the mean season we are threatened daily, and do look still when the hurdle shall be brought to the door."

Blessed John Slade


Layman and schoolmaster. Hanged, drawn, and quartered on 2 November 1583 at Winchester, England.


Edward ArdenBorn c. 1542. In 1583, Arden was indicted in Warwick for plotting against the life of the Queen and taken to London, where he was arraigned in the Guildhall, 16 December, 1583. He was convicted and was executed at Smithfield, 30 December, 1583. It is generally conceded that Arden was the innocent victim of a plot. He died protesting his innocence and declaring that his only crime was the profession of the Catholic religion.

Richard Hatton

Priest. Died in a London prison in 1583 or 1584.

Thomas Cotesmore
William Chaplain
Roger (or, Robert) Holmes
James Lomax
Roger Wakeman

Priests. Perished in prisons in 1584. Of Wakeman's suffering several harrowing details are on record.

John Collins

Priest. Died in 1584.

Henry Comberford

Priest. Died in a York prison in 1584.

William Travers

Layman. Died in a London prison in 1584.

Thomas Watson

Bishop of Lincoln. Died after being held in Wisbeach Castle, in 1584.

Blessed William Carter

Born 1548. A lay printer. Among other Catholic books he printed a new edition (1000 copies) of Dr. Gregory Martin's "A Treatise of Schism", in 1580, for which he was at once arrested and imprisoned in the Gatehouse. He was transferred to the Tower in 1582. Having been tortured on the rack, he was indicted at the Old Bailey, 10 January 1584, for having printed Dr. Martin's book, in which was a paragraph where confidence was expressed that the Catholic Hope would triumph, and pious Judith would slay Holofernes. This was interpreted as an incitement to slay the queen, though it obviously had no such meaning. He was executed for for treason at Tyburn on 11 January, 1584.

Blessed James Feun (or, Fenn)

Ordained in 1580. He was named a conspirator of a bogus assassination plot, and hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn on February 12, 1584.

Blessed George Haydock

Born 1556. Ordained in 1581. Hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn on 12 February 1584. He had been reciting prayers all the way, and as he mounted the cart said aloud the last verse of "Te lucis ante terminum". He acknowledged Elizabeth as his rightful queen, but confessed that he had called her a heretic. He then recited secretly a Latin hymn, refused to pray in English with the people, but desired that all Catholics would pray for him and his country. Whereupon one bystander cried "Here be no Catholics", and another "We be all Catholics"; Haydock explained "I mean Catholics of the Catholic Roman Church, and I pray God that my blood may increase the Catholic faith in England". Then the cart was driven away, and though "the officer struck at the rope sundry times before he fell down", Haydock was alive when he was disembowelled.

Blessed Thomas Hemerford
Blessed John Munden
Blessed John Nutter

Priests. All hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn on 12 February 1584.

Blessed James Bell

Born c. 1520. Priest. Hanged, drawn, and quartered at Lancaster on 20 April, 1584.

Blessed John Finch

Born c. 1548. Convert. His house was a centre of missionary work, he himself harbouring priests and aiding them in every way, besides acting as catechist. His zeal drew on him the hostility of the authorities, and at Christmas, 1581, he was entrapped and kept in the earl's house as a prisoner, sometimes tortured and sometimes bribed in order to pervert him and induce him to give information. This failing, he was removed to the Fleet prison at Manchester and afterwards to the House of Correction. When he refused to go to the Protestant church he was dragged there by the feet, his head beating on the stones. For many months he lay in a damp dungeon, ill-fed and ill-treated, desiring always that he might be brought to trial and martyrdom. After three years' imprisonment, he was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Lancaster on 20 April, 1584.

St. Richard Gwyn (or, White)

Born c. 1537. Gwyn often had to change his home and his school to avoid fines and imprisonment. Finally in 1579 he was arrested by the Vicar of Wrexham, a former Catholic who had conformed to the new faith. He escaped and remained a fugitive for a year and a half, was recaptured, and spent the next four years in one prison after another until his execution. Gwyn was tortured often in prison, largely with the use of manacles. However, his adherence to the Catholic faith never wavered. Once when he was brought before a court, the clerk who read the indictment suddenly lost his vision and had to be replaced before the proceedings could resume. The judge cautioned those present not to report the incident, so that Catholics could not claim that it was a miracle. On another occasion, the judge, who later sentenced Richard to death, became inexplicably speechless in court. Gwyn was condemned to death by hanging, drawing and quartering. This sentence was carried out in the Beast Market in Wrexham on 15 October 1584. When he appeared dead they cut him down, but he revived and remained conscious through the disembowelling, until his head was severed. His last words, in Welsh, were "Iesu, trugarha wrthyf" (Jesus, have mercy on me).

Thomas Crowther
Edward Pole
John Jetter

Priests. Perished in prisons in 1585.

John Ackridge

Priest. Perished in a prison in York in 1585.

John Feckenham

Benedictine, abbot of Westminster. Died in prison in 1585.

Richard Creagh

Archbishop of Armagh, Ireland. Creagh preached loyalty to England. In 1567 he was lodged in the Tower of London, and kept there till his death in 1585. From his repeated examinations before the English Privy Council his unwavering loyalty to England were made plain. But his steadfastness in the Faith and his great popularity in Ireland were considered crimes, and in consequence the Council refused to set him free. Not content with this his moral character was assailed. The daughter of his jailer was urged to charge him with having assaulted her. The charge was investigated in public court, where the girl retracted, declaring her accusation absolutely false.

William Hambleton

Priest. Executed in 1585.

Stephen Hemsworth

Layman. Died in a York prison in 1585.

Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland

Layman. Died in a London prison in 1585.

Laurence Vaux

Born in 1519. Priest. Arrested in Rochester in 1580 on information lodged by a spy. After several examinations Vaux was finally committed by the Bishop of London to the Gatehouse Prison, Westminster. According to an account of the arrest in the "Douay Diaries", Bishop Aylmer demanded: "What relation are you to that Vaux who wrote a popish catechism in English?" The aged priest admitted his authorship and that confession settled his fate. For the first three years of his imprisonment, owing chiefly to the wealth and influence of noble friends, Vaux was treated with comparative mildness. In August 1583 the aged confessor was transferred to the Clink. According to Strype, he was brought up again before the relentless Aylmer, in 1585, and found guilty "and so in danger of death". What happened further we do not know; if actually sentenced, he must have been reprieved. In all probability he was abandoned to a lingering death in prison. The common tradition is represented by this contemporary item from St. Martin's Chronicle: "The venerable Father Lawrence Vaux, martyr. . .for the confession of the Catholic Faith thrown into prison, where he was starved to death, and so gained the crown of martyrdom, 1585."

John Almond

Cistercian, Confessor of the Faith; died in Hull Castle, 18 April, 1585. His case is of special interest as an example of the sufferings endured in the Elizabethan prisons. He came from Cheshire, and had been a monk in the time of Henry VIII. The long-drawn sufferings, amid which he closed his days are set forth in a relation printed by Foley. From this we see that the courageous, patient old priest, after many sufferings in prison, was left in extreme age to pine away under a neglect that was revolting.

Thomas Vavasour

Born c. 1537. Physician. In 1572 he was accused of having entertained St. Edmund Campion. In Nov., 1574, after he had been confined to his own house in the city of York for nearly nine months, he was sent into solitary confinement in the Hull Castle (York). By June, 1579, he was back again in his house, where Mass was again said. Later on he was in the Gatehouse, Westminster, from which he was released on submitting to acknowledge the royal supremacy in religious matter; but he was again imprisoned as a recusant in Hull Castle, York where he died on 2 May 1585.

Blessed Thomas Alfield

Convert. Ordained in 1581. Wavered at one point (after torture) and became a Protestant. But he regained his Catholic faith and was executed at Tyburn, 6 July, 1585.

Venerable Thomas Webley

Layman. Executed at Tyburn, 6 July, 1585.

Blessed Hugh Taylor

Ordained in 1585. He was the first to suffer under the Statute 27 Eliz. c. 2. lately passed. Hanged, drawn, and quartered at York, 25 November, 1585.

Blessed Marmaduke Bowes

Layman. Executed on 26 November 1585.

Robert Shelly (or, Richard Shelley)

Layman. Died in a London prison in 1585 or 1586.

William Blackburne

Priest. Died in 1586.

John Harrison

Priest. Perished in prison in 1586.

Gabriel Empringham
Robert Holland
Peter Lawson

Laymen. Died in London prisons in 1586.

Thomas Harwood

Priest. Died in a York prison in 1586.

Blessed Edward Stransham

Born c. 1554. Ordained 1580. Executed at Tyburn on 21 January, 1586.

Blessed Nicholas Woodfen

Born c. 1550. Executed at Tyburn on 21 January, 1586.

St. Margaret Clitherow

Born 1556. She converted to Roman Catholicism at the age of 18, in 1574. She then became a friend of the persecuted Roman Catholic population in the north of England. Her son, Henry, went to Reims to train as a Catholic priest. She regularly held Masses in her home in the Shambles in York. There was a hole cut between the attics of her house and the house next door, so that a priest could escape if there was a raid. In 1586, she was arrested and called before the York assizes for the crime of harbouring Roman Catholic priests. She refused to plead to the case so as to prevent a trial that would entail her children being made to testify, and she was executed by being crushed to death – the standard punishment for refusal to plead. On Good Friday of 1586, she was laid out upon a sharp rock, and a door was put on top of her and loaded with an immense weight of rocks and stones. Death occurred within fifteen minutes.

Blessed William Thomson

Born c. 1560. Priest. Hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn on 20 April 1586.

Blessed Richard Sergeant

Ordained in 1583. Hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn, 20 April, 1586.

Blessed Robert Anderton

Born c. 1560. Convert and priest. Hanged, drawn, and quartered on 25 April 1586 on the Isle of Wight.

Blessed William Marsden

Born c. 1560. Convert and priest. Hanged, drawn, and quartered on 25 April 1586 on the Isle of Wight.

Blessed Francis Ingleby

Born c. 1551. Ordained in 1583. Executed at York on Friday, 3 June, 1586.

Blessed John Fingley (or, Finglow)

Ordained in 1581. Hanged, drawn, and quartered at York on 8 August 1586.

Blessed John Sandys

Ordained in 1584. Hanged, drawn and quartered at Gloucester, 11 August, 1586. He was cut down while fully conscious and had a terrible struggle with the executioner, who had blackened his face to avoid recognition and used a rusty and ragged knife; but his last words were a prayer for his persecutors.

Blessed John Adams

Born c. 1543. Priest. Captured on December 19, 1585. In that year the Act had been passed making it a capital offence to be a Catholic priest in England. The sentence of hanging, drawing and quartering was completed at Tyburn, London on October 8, 1586.

Blessed Robert Bickerdike

Layman. Arrested for giving a priest, St. John Boste, a glass of ale, he was also accused at his trial of using treasonable words. He was acquitted, but Judge Rhodes, determined to have his blood, had him removed from the city gaol to the Castle and tried once more on the same charge. He was then condemned. Executed at York on 8 October 1586.

Blessed Robert Dibdale

Born c. 1558. Ordained as a priest in 1584. He was arrested near Tothill Street in London on July 24, 1586 and was imprisoned first at the Counter then at Newgate. Given the 1585 Act making it a capital offence to be a Catholic priest in England the terrible sentence of hanging, drawing and quartering was inevitable. It was carried out at Tyburn, London on October 8, 1586.

Blessed John Lowe

Born 1553. Ordained by 1583. Hanged, drawn and quartered for being a priest at Tyburn, London on October 8, 1586.

Blessed Richard Langley

Layman and member of the gentry. During the troublous times of the Elizabethan period Langley gave over his energies and a very considerable part of his fortune to assisting the oppressed clergy; his house was freely offered as an asylum to priests. He even constructed a subterranean retreat, which afforded them sanctuary. This refuge was betrayed. During the investigation Langley was steadfast in his adherence to the Faith. He would not take the oath of the queen's ecclesiastical supremacy, nor compromise his religious heritage by seeking to ingratiate himself with the lord president or Privy Council. He was hanged, drawn, and quartered at York on 1 December 1586.

James Stonnes

Priest. Born 1513. After Elizabeth's accession he never entered a church, but wandered about Durham and Yorkshire, with occasional visits to Lancashire, where he was known as Uncle James, saying Mass as often as the opportunity of time, place, and company gave leave. He was eventually arrested by the Earl of Derby about midnight 19 Nov., 1585, at the house of a very poor man, a victualler, and an under-tenant, living eight miles from the earl's seat, Newpark, in the Parish of Ormskirk, Lancashire. As he would not commit himself to the royal supremacy, though he acknowledged the queen as temporal sovereign, and wished she might have Nestor's years, and as he confessed that he regarded her ecclesiastical policy as contrary to God's law and refused to give up saying Mass, he was committed to the New Fleet, Manchester, where, as he was then aged 72, it is probable he died [c. 1586].





Queen Elizabeth, c. 1575, "The Darnley Portrait" by an unknown artist

That you and each of you be carried to the place from whence you came, and from thence be drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution, and be there severally hanged, but cut down while you are alive; that your privy members be cut off; that your bowels be taken out and burnt before your faces; that your heads be severed from your bodies; that your bodies be divided into four quarters, and that your quarters be at the Queen's disposal; and the Lord have mercy on your souls.

Last edited on Sun Feb 17th, 2008 12:22 am by Dave Armstrong