Book of English Martyrs - E. M. Wilmot-Buxton




The York Martyrs
1582–1586

"You might, sir, with the some justice, charge the Apostles with being traitors,
for they taught the same doctrines that I teach,
and did the same things for which you condemn me."
(Father Kirkman at his Trial.)

It is tempting to linger over the stories of nine more martyrs who laid down their lives at Tyburn between December 1581 and May 1582; to tell of the sufferings of Father Briant, under whose nails were thrust sharp needles to make him disclose where he had seen Father Parsons, who was thrown for eight days into the "pit," a subterranean cave, twenty feet deep, without light, and who was only drawn out to be racked till he swooned with pain; on whom Norton, the rack-master, made the infamous jest that he "would make him a foot longer than God made him." Or of Blessed Thomas Ford, and Blessed John Sharpe and Blessed Robert Johnson, priests, who after their glorious passing, are said to have appeared to Stephen Rowsham, a future martyr, in the Tower, and to have told him "what pains their martyrdom had been to them and with what joy they were rewarded." But we must pass on to a group of priests and others martyred at York between the years 1582 and 1586, which represents another phase of these years of persecution and triumph over death.

The virulence of the persecution of Catholics in that city can be accounted for partly by the fact that it was the seat of the Northern Council, by which the northern counties was ruled, and which was under the presidency of the Earl of Huntingdon, a Protestant, and all the more bitter that he had given up the Faith held at the cost of life by his Catholic ancestors. For he was a Pole on his mother's side, and great-grandson of Blessed Margaret herself.

The old Faith was strong in the North, which had been left to some extent untouched by Protestant teaching, and had survived even the terrible consequences of the rising of earlier days; and it was to be the vain boast of Huntingdon that he would stamp it out in blood.

On a certain morning, in the spring of 1582, Mass had been said in the Castle prison in York under rather exceptional circumstances.

The prisons of the ancient city were crowded at that time, and during the whole of the twenty years of Huntingdon's rule, with Catholics, many of whom died in gaol. For we are told on good authority that these prisons were "dens of iniquity and horror. . . . Some of them had no light and no ventilation; several were partly under water whenever there was a flood."

To cheer and to encourage these brave sufferers for the Faith by bringing them food both for body and soul, several priests were wont to visit the prisons in disguise, and among them Father William Hart, and Father William Lacey were two of the most earnest and courageous. To them came one day a third, Father Thomas Bell, lately ordained and returned from abroad, who told them that he had once been himself confined in the Castle prison for six years, for refusing to attend the Protestant Church, and had been put to the torture there by being hung up head downwards for three days. Now he was minded to sing High Mass in that very prison as an act of thanksgiving for his escape and subsequent ordination; in which office Fathers Hart and Lacey joyfully promised to assist.

Word was passed round the prison; and in the dark of early morning Mass was said in the cell of a Catholic prisoner, in the presence of all those who had been able to leave their cells unobserved. It was just over when a certain prisoner who had been delayed in making his way to the cell, fell over a bench. The noise roused the gaolers, who found all in confusion and the lights but just extinguished. In the hurried search that followed, Father Hart managed to climb the outer wall and make his way through the moat to a place of safety. Bell also escaped, and in later years became an apostate, to his everlasting shame. But Father Lacey, a grey haired old man who, now a widower, had but lately been ordained after an honorable career in York as a magistrate and a married man, was taken as he was trying to follow his friends over the wall.

When he was searched, his letters of Orders were found upon him, a dangerous possession enough in those days, which, however, he accounted for by the fact that "it was a difficult matter to convince many of his acquaintances, especially Protestants, that he was in Orders, having lived in a married state so long and having been absent from his country so short a time." There was little chance of escape for him, since he was well known to have constantly harbored priests as a layman and to have only escaped imprisonment by wandering from one place to another in disguise; but as the Act which would have condemned him as a priest ordained abroad was not yet passed, they could only bring him in guilty of high treason by the answer he gave to the usual blunt question:

"Will you acknowledge the queen as supreme head of the Church?" To which he replied, "About this and all other things I hold with the Catholic Church and all good Christians."

And so he passed tranquilly to the hurdle and the gallows.

In the narrow turret-room that was his prison he had for a time the consolation of the companionship of a young secular priest named Richard Kirkman. On his arrival in England he had acted as tutor, and carried on meantime very active missionary work at the house of that good confessor, Robert Dymoke, who died in prison in 1580 for refusing to attend the Protestant service. For some time Father Kirkman carried on his work as a missionary among the vales of Northumberland and Yorkshire before he was tracked down and brought to York. Accused of being a Papist and a traitor, he replied calmly, "You might, sir, with the same justice charge the apostles with being traitors, for they taught the same doctrine that I now teach, and did the same things for which you condemn me."

Nine months later saw the martyrdom of Father Hart, who thus fulfilled the prediction that he would be the fourth martyr of York, since Blessed James Thomson had suffered there in the previous November.

For a little more than a year he had carried on his mission, winning by his zeal, his sweetness of nature, and his love for souls, the title of the "Apostle of Yorkshire"; while many people declared that he was like Father Campion himself in his eloquence and persuasiveness.

We have seen him ministering, at the risk of his life, to the Catholic prisoners who crowded those terrible prisons of York; and six months after his escape from the Castle on the morning of Father Bell's Mass, he was carrying on this good work from the house of Margaret Clitherow, of whom we shall presently hear more.

Betrayed by a miserable apostate who had tracked him to this spot, he was taken on Christmas night, as he lay sleeping quietly in his chamber after five nights' hard work spent in hearing confessions and giving Holy Communion to his people. When dragged before the Lord President, Father Hart evidently showed such fearlessness and innocence in his replies that a certain nobleman, hearing he was accused of treason, said to Huntingdon, "This man, my lord, seems to me to be altogether guiltless of any such crime." Nevertheless he was thrown into an underground dungeon and loaded with chains, in a vain attempt to deprive him of his joyousness of soul. A more successful means of torture was the report that the Dean of York had more than half converted him to the new religion in the disputations, the truth being, as he was able to assure his anxious penitents, that he had silenced his questioners on every point raised. His trial was the usual tissue of catch questions and injustice, and after his condemnation he gladly prepared himself for death.

Throughout the many letters written to his spiritual children and others during these last days breathes the most wonderful spirit of Joy—almost, indeed, of mirth—at the thought of the honor to which his Master had called him; indeed, in one of them he beseeches his friends to stay indoors on the day of his execution unless they can assist at it with joyful face and a tranquil mien.

His end was harassed by the rude interruptions and railings of the Protestant ministers who were present, and who finally tried to insist that he should pray with them—presumably for his own conversion, since of their own righteousness they were well assured. But he only said gently, "As I do not belong to your Church, I may not pray with you," and then cried clearly to the thronging multitude below, "This one request I earnestly make of all Catholics, that they pray for me, and bear witness to all men that I die a Catholic and for the Catholic faith, not for any crime or treason."

"His virtues were so illustrious," says one who knew him well, "that they shone as the stars of heaven, and compelled the admiration not only of his friends, but even of his deadly foes. One of the jurymen at his trial had been so struck by his holiness that he openly said to his colleague that he would have no part in condemning one so innocent and holy; and he was in consequence thrown into prison, though a man of good name and much respected in York. Even the porter of the prison, callous and hard-hearted as he was, was moved to tears when he saw the holy martyr dragged so cruelly to death. In spite of all the efforts of the magistrates, the people could not be hindered from carrying off his sacred relics, and proclaiming aloud his innocence and sanctity, though many were imprisoned for doing so."

Another writes of him thus to Dr. Allen, his old master at Douay. "The week before Palm Sunday William Hart gloriously poured out his blood for the Church of Christ and the authority of His Vicar—a young priest, who, as you know, was both innocent, modest, learned, and holy. As he was being carried to execution very many saluted him with the greatest kindness and love. Among them were two brothers of the noble family of Ingleby of Ripley, who are now in prison on this charge."

Father Francis Ingleby, brother of these gallant gentlemen, who was in that same year ordained priest at Douay, was another of those gay and high-spirited natures who had learnt, by the grace of God, to meet a terrible death with a smile of welcome. For two years his zeal for souls did a wonderful work in Yorkshire, and then, in the spring of 1586, he was captured on his way to York by one of the President's men, who saw a Catholic kneel to him and ask his blessing, and so made sure that he was a priest. Knowing him to be of high birth, "they said to him, they marveled that he, being a gentleman of so great calling, would abase himself to be a priest. He answered that he made more account of his priesthood than of all other titles whatsoever. Brought into the Castle, he had a pair of fetters laid upon his legs at the prison door. The Catholic prisoners craved his blessing. With smiling countenance he said, 'I fear me I shall be over proud of my new boots,' meaning his fetters.

"After his condemnation, he showed such tokens of inward joy that the keeper said that he took no small pleasure to behold his sweet and joyful conversation; for his joy was such that his keeper, a very earnest Puritan, could not abstain from tears."

Blessed William Hart, Blessed William Lacey, and Venerable Francis Ingleby are probably all to be numbered among the many priests who were protected and harbored by that gallant gentlewoman, Venerable Margaret Clitherow, the last of the long list of York martyrs whom we have space to notice here.

Brought up in her quiet, well-to-do home in York in ignorance of the Catholic Faith, Margaret's eyes were not opened until two or three years after her marriage with a rich tradesman of the city. Then her enthusiasm knew no bounds, and her one desire was to serve the Church into whose borders she had been admitted. Her husband, though he took no risks himself, and remained on the safe side of Protestantism, was of Catholic family, and left both her and their children free to practice their faith.

During the two years after her conversion she had been imprisoned several times for refusing to attend the Church, but, says her confessor, Father John Marsh, who tells us full details of her life, "the prison she accounted a most happy and profitable school; they persecuted her, and she thereby learnt patience. . . They separated her from house, children, and husband, and she thereby became familiar with God; they sought to terrify her, and she thereby increased in the most glorious constancy and fortitude, insomuch that her greatest joy was to be assaulted by them."

The executions of the martyrs Lacey, Thomson, and Kirkman in 1582 stirred Margaret up to fresh enthusiasm for the cause of the Faith. She had prepared a little room for priests close to her house in Davygate, where they could be free from observation; and when that became unsafe, another was made ready at some little distance. Here many a wayfaring priest on his way through York lay hidden, getting a much needed rest while Margaret kept guard. The living and the dead were thus both her companions in her vigils, for many a dark night would see her walking barefoot to the place of execution outside Micklegate, where she would kneel and pray for the fulfillment of her earnest wish that if it were God's will she might give her life for the same Catholic cause.

After the Penal Act of 1585, Margaret was in terror lest her confessor should command her not to harbor priests any longer, since it was now an offence punishable by death; and when he, moved by her eagerness, would not forbid it, she cried with joy, "Now by God's grace all priests shall be more welcome to me than ever they were, and I will do what I can to set forward God's Catholic service."

"Then you must needs prepare your neck for the rope," he said smiling; to which she replied, "God's will be done, but I am far unworthy of that honor."

Quite suddenly, however, after nearly two years of freedom, an order came for Margaret's husband to appear before the Council, and the sheriffs arrived to search the house. There were at that time two priests within the house, one newly arrived, the other acting as tutor to the Clitherow children and some of their friends.

The former was hastily hidden by Margaret in a secret cellar, while the latter, who had only lately escaped from the Castle prison, was unsuspectingly giving a lesson to his pupils. Before she could warn him, one of the searchers opened the door, and seeing him teaching, suspected him to be a priest and hurried back to tell the rest. "The schoolmaster, thinking him to be a friend, opened the door to call him in, but when he perceived the matter, he shut the door again, and by that way which was from the martyr's house to the priest's chamber escaped their paws."

In their rage at these two escapes, the sheriffs took the future martyr, her children, and her servants, and threw them into different prisons. Then by a cruel device they took a young Flemish boy of ten or twelve years whom Margaret had taken into her household, stripped him, and threatened to beat him unmercifully if he would not tell them all they asked. The terrified child confessed that his benefactress had "harbored and maintained" various priests, of whom he mentioned two by name, and even at length consented to take them to the "priest's hole," empty now, however, of their desired prey. This was enough for them; for they could now secure a verdict of high treason against Margaret Clitherow.

The trial of this brave, high-spirited woman had this strange feature. After hearing her strenuous denial that she was guilty of maintaining "enemies to her Majesty," since she knew very well that priests could not be so described, they asked her how she would be tried. To which she cheerfully made answer, "Having made no offence, I need no trial."

Now as all the evidence against her rested on the word of a young child, Margaret might possibly have gained her acquittal had she stood her trial and pleaded "Not guilty." But she knew very well that if the trial took place, her friends, her husband, and her children would be forced to give evidence against her, and she was determined that they should not have her blood upon their heads.

The alternative was a terrible sentence enough, and this was now pronounced upon her.

"You must return from whence you came, and there in the lowest part of the prison, be stripped naked, laid down, your back upon the ground, and as much weight laid upon you as you are able to bear, and so continue three days without meat or drink, except a little barley bread and puddle water, and the third day be pressed to death, your hands and feet bound to posts, and a sharp stone under your back."

Such cruelties seem scarcely possible, even in the sixteenth century; but Margaret heard the sentence unmoved, merely saying, "If this judgment be according to your own conscience, I pray God send you better judgment before Him. I thank God heartily for this."

Even the judge ceased not to appeal to her to change her mind, but she was quite unmoved. She knew, of course, that her husband, as a Protestant, might easily be brought at the trial to betray many of the priests by name, and as her own martyrdom on this charge was certain either way, she chose the more cruel death to save him from the remorse of having in any way brought about her condemnation. He, indeed, poor man, was beside himself with grief at this time. "Will they kill my wife?" he cried. "Let them take all I have and save her, for she is the best wife in all England, and the best Catholic."

We will not linger over the dreadful details of her martyrdom. It is sufficient to know that her courage never failed, so that all who looked upon her marveled greatly, saying, "Surely this woman receiveth comfort from the Holy Ghost."

The sheriff tried his best to make her confess that she died for treason, but she replied, "No, no, Mr. Sheriff, I die for the love of my Lord Jesus."

Her sufferings lasted for fifteen minutes, and "thus most victoriously this gracious martyr overcame all her enemies, passing from this mortal life with marvelous triumph into the peaceable City of God."

Her little daughter Anne, twelve years of age, after being imprisoned for refusing to betray her mother, was beaten and ill-used because she would not go to church. Then they falsely tricked her into going to hear a sermon, by saying that if she refused, her mother would be put to death, after which they told the heart-broken child that Margaret was already dead. After suffering imprisonment for some time, she managed to escape from England, and became an Ursuline nun at Louvain. Her two brothers became priests, and thus by her descendants as well as by her own prayers in the City of God did Venerable Margaret Clitherow carry on the work so nobly begun on earth.