Preview: Two Martyrs Named Margaret

On Monday, July 27, we'll continue our series on the Son Rise Morning Show with two more lay martyrs, Saint Margaret Clitherow and Saint Margaret Ward, two magnificent Catholic heroines who suffered during the reign of "Good Queen Bess" because they defended Catholic priests.

Saint Margaret Clitherow, The Pearl of York, was pressed or crushed to death on Good Friday (according to the Old Calendar, since England had not accepted the Catholic Gregorian reforms), March 25, 1586. Because she had refused to enter any plea when brought to trial--not cooperating with authorities--she was condemned to this unusual method of execution.

Clitherow was laid supine on the ground, a small stone placed beneath her back. She was naked, except for the shift placed on top of her. Her arms were outstretched like Jesus’ on the cross and tied to stakes, and the executioners placed a door on top of her. Then the executioners placed nearly 700 pounds of rocks on top of the door. She was crushed to death in about 15 minutes, speaking the name of Jesus as her ribs broke: “Jesu! Jesu! Jesu! Have mercy on me!”

She was born Margaret Middleton in 1556, married John Clitherow, a wealthy butcher and widower, when she was 18; at age 21, she became a Catholic. Her husband paid her fines when she refused to attend Church of England services, but he could not prevent her from being arrested and jailed for what authorities considered obstinate “popery” (her refusal to conform to the official national church). While she was in prison, however, she learned how to read and write.

John had children from his first marriage, Henry and Thomas; John had also allowed her to raise them as Catholics, as well as her children Anne and William. She hired a Catholic tutor named Stapleton to teach the children the faith. One of their sons, Henry, left York to attend a Catholic school on the Continent.

John Clitherow became a chamberlain of the city of York and was outraged when the authorities questioned him about his family’s faith and his son’s absence. John’s own brother William was a Catholic priest, so he was vulnerable, in spite of his public conformity to the Anglican church, especially when his wife refused to conform.

On March 10, 1586, the authorities raided the Clitherow household and found the tutor, Anne, William and neighborhood children doing their lessons. One little boy, from Flanders, after being threatened with torture, told the authorities about the priests who visited the household and showed them where the vestments were hidden. They arrested Margaret and accused her of breaking the laws against attending Mass and harboring Catholic priests.

Most of the sources I've read indicate that Clitherow refused to enter at plea at trial because she knew that her husband and her children would be called as witnesses and might be threatened with or even suffer torture; also her husband's standing in the community meant that his friends and colleagues would be on the jury to cast the verdict against her.

Being sentenced to peine forte et dure (“hard and forceful punishment”) was usually a three-day process: the first two days the prisoner would be laid down on the ground with as much weight laid upon her as she was able to bear and left thus without food or drink. If she entered her plea during the first two days, the weights would be removed and her trial would continue. If she still wouldn't enter a plea under this torture, she would be crushed to death on the third day. Saint Margaret Clitherow did not undergo the torture of three days: she was crushed to death on the first day. They left her body under the weights for another six hours and then buried her secretly. Her right hand was retrieved as a relic; it is kept at the Bar Convent in York. Her body was also found and decently buried.

Before sentence was carried out she sent her stockings and shoes to her daughter, conveying the message of following in her footsteps of faithfulness to the Church and the Sacraments. Anne left England to become a nun in Louvain, now Belgium. Both William and Henry became priests; and Thomas died in Hull prison in 1604, imprisoned for recusancy. John Clitherow remarried.

Father John Mush, her confessor, wrote her story in 1586, The Life and Death of Mistress Margaret Clitherow; he was arrested and sentenced to death in October that year but escaped.

Saint Margaret Ward was part of the second group of martyrs to suffer in 1588 after the failure of the Spanish Armada. She is a virgin martyr: she helped Father Richard Watson escape from Bridewell Prison. She visited him often enough that the jailer finally allowed her to enter without searching her, so she was able to smuggle in a rope. Father Watson unfortunately injured himself while escaping and was unable to retrieve the rope. Margaret found John Roche to help the injured priest once out of prison and both she and John were arrested; John because he had exchanged clothing with the priest and Margaret because the jailer figured out that she was the last person to visit Father Watson before he escaped. She was held in chains, hung up by her hands and scourged as the authorities attempted to force her to tell them where Father Watson went after escaping Bridewell prison. She refused, even though she acknowledged that she helped him. Offered a pardon for attending Church of England services, she again refused. The torture inflicted upon her over eight days left her partially paralyzed and she had to be carried to Tyburn for hanging. On August 30, 1588, she and Blessed John Roche, who had helped rescue Father Richard Watson, Blesseds Richard Lloyd, Richard Martin, and Edward Shelley, and one priest, Blessed Richard Leigh suffered martyrdom. The regime was certainly sending a message about laity who assisted Catholic priests.

These two saints share a separate feast day on August 30 with the other female martyr among the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales, St. Anne Line. In the triptych featured above, they are depicted in the right hand panel. Anne Line, a widow, is dressed in black; Margaret Ward holds a rope; Margaret Clitherow kneels on a door. The painting is by Geoffrey Webb.

St. Margaret Clitherow, pray for us!
St. Margaret Ward, pray for us!