May the Fourth Be With You: The Feast of the ALL the Martyrs of England and Wales

Today, in the dioceses of England and in the Anglican Ordinariates, the Church celebrates the Martyrs of England and Wales on the anniversary of the Protomartyrs, the three Carthusian Priors (Saint John Houghton, Saint Robert Lawrence, and Saint Augustine Webster), Blessed John Haile, the parish vicar from Isleworth, and Saint Richard Reynolds, from the Brigittine House of Syon, brutally executed on May 4, 1535 by being hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn Tree. This feast was celebrated on October 25 after Pope St. Paul VI canonized the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales on that date in 1970, but it was moved to May 4 on the Vatican approved the revised Liturgical Calendar for England and Wales in 2010. In the dioceses of Wales, the feast of the Welsh Martyrs and Companions (the English martyrs) is celebrated on October 25.

According to a previously available article from the UK Catholic Herald cited here, today's feast includes all the martyrs:

The feast of the English Martyrs is celebrated on May 4. The 40 martyrs canonised under Paul VI in 1973 (sic: 1970), previously celebrated on October 25, are celebrated with the 85 beatified Martyrs of the Reformation and the other martyrs of the 16th and 17th century. The feast coincides with the Church of England celebration of English saints and martyrs of the Reformation. . . .

The "other martyrs of the 16th and 17th centuries" include those beatified by Pope Leo XIII in 1886 and 1895 and by Pope Pius XI in 1929 who have not been canonized and also those declared venerable by Pope  Leo XIII in 1886:

• In 1886, Pope Leo XIII beatified 54 martyrs, including Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher and 11 others who were canonized in 1970 by Pope Paul VI;
• In 1886, Pope Leo also declared 29 English Catholic martyrs to be Venerable (several of these martyrs had died in chains, that is, is prison or because of their treatment in prison);
• In 1895, Pope Leo XIII beatified nine more martyrs;
• In 1929, Pope Pius XI beatified 136 additional martyrs, 29 of whom were later canonized.

Just to complete the sequence of dates:

• In 1935, Pope Pius XI canonized John Cardinal Fisher and Thomas
• In 1970, Pope Paul VI canonized the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales
• In 1987, Pope John Paul II beatified the 85 Martyrs of England and Wales (which did not include any of those declared Venerable in 1886)

These martyrs suffered for different reasons:

The Supremacy martyrs died because they would not swear Henry VIII's Oath of Supremacy and Oath of Succession, which both denied the spiritual, moral, and ecclesiastical authority of the Pope. The Recusant martyrs died during the reigns of Elizabeth I, James I and Charles I because they continued to practice their Catholic faith in England as missionary priests and/or laity in spite of the recusancy and penal laws against them. Some of the early Recusant martyrs (like Saint Edmund Campion and companions) were tried for fictitious plots, anticipating the next group. Finally, the Popish Plot martyrs were executed in the miscarriage of justice called the Popish Plot. Accused of conspiring in a non-existent plot, their Catholicism condemned them: the priests were sometimes found guilty of their priestly presence in England under Elizabethan statutes when no involvement in the Plot could be found.

This blog is replete with the stories of the martyrs! I've discussed their lives and deaths on the Son Rise Morning show for years too!

The Catholic Culture website also has an excellent gathering of resources for today's feast, including the Collect:

God, all-powerful Father, you strengthen our faith and take away our weakness. Let the prayers and example of the Blessed Martyrs of England and Wales help us to share in the passion and resurrection of Christ and bring us to eternal joy with all your saints. Amen.

Holy Martyrs of England and Wales, pray for us!

Preview: Three More Venerable Catholic Martyrs on the Son Rise Morning Show

On Monday, August 23, Matt Swaim and I will talk about three Venerable English Catholic Martyrs on the Son Rise Morning Show at my usual time, about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Please listen live on EWTN Radio or on your local EWTN affiliate.

Two of these three martyrs are brothers from a resolutely Recusant family, Father Thomas Tichborne and the layman Nicholas Tichborne. The third Venerable martyr is also a layman, Thomas Hackshot, who led Nicholas in the dangerous rescue of Father Tichborne. The laymen Thomas Hackshot and  Nicholas Tichborne suffered martyrdom first, on August 24, 1601:

As the Catholic Encyclopedia tells their story, Nicholas Tichborne was

b. at Hartley Mauditt, Hampshire; suffered at Tyburn, London, 24 Aug., 1601. He was a recusant at large in 1592, but by 14 March, 1597, had been imprisoned. On that date he gave evidence against various members of his family. Before 3 Nov., 1598, he had obtained his liberty and had effected the release of his brother, Venerable Thomas Tichborne, a prisoner in the Gatehouse, Westminster, by assaulting his keeper. He is to be distinguished from the Nicholas Tichborne who died in Winchester Gaol in 1587. [His father, who has not been declared Venerable, nor beatified or canonized.]

The Catholic Encyclopedia has less detail about Thomas Hackshot:

With him suffered Venerable Thomas Hackshot (b. at Mursley, Buckinghamshire), who was condemned on the same charge, viz. that of effecting the escape of the priest Thomas Tichborne. During his long imprisonment in the Gatehouse he was "afflicted with divers torments, which he endured with great courage and fortitude."

So Nicholas had been in prison from the middle of March in 1597 to the first November in 1598--about a year and seven months--and had given enough information about his recusant family to satisfy the authorities to release him, thus enabling him to help free his brother! 

From reading Bishop Richard Challoner's comments in Memoirs of Missionary Priests and Other Catholics (etc), however, Venerable Thomas Hackshot took the lead in the rescue of Nicholas' brother. According to Challoner, Hackshot was "a stout young man" and he knew that a jailer would escort Father Thomas Tichborne down a certain street near the Gatehouse prison near Westminster Abbey, so Hackshot and Nicholas Tichborne waited for them and then Hackshot knocked the jailer down so the priest could escape. But the two laymen were captured. From Challoner's telling, Hackshot is really the hero of this rescue! (pp. 235-236)

(The Gatehouse prison was demolished in 1776.)
Image Credit (Public Domain) 

Also from the Catholic Encyclopedia, we know that  Venerable Thomas Tichborne suffered martyrdom nearly eight months after his brother and Hackshot:

Born at Hartley, Hampshire, 1567; martyred at Tyburn, London, 20 April, 1602. He was educated at Rheims (1584-87) and Rome, where he was ordained on Ascension Day, 17 May, 1592. Returning to England on 10 March, 1594, he laboured in his native county, where he escaped apprehension till the early part of 1597. He was sent a prisoner to the Gatehouse in London, but in the autumn of 1598 was helped to escape by his brother, Ven. Nicholas Tichborne, and Ven. Thomas Hackshot, who were both martyred shortly afterwards. Betrayed by Atkinson, an apostate priest, he was re-arrested and on 17 April, 1602, was brought to trial with Ven. Robert Watkinson (a young Yorkshire man who had been educated at Rome and ordained priest at Douai a month before) and Ven. James Duckett, a London bookseller. On 20 April he was executed with Ven. Robert Watkinson and Ven. Francis Page, S.J. The last named was a convert, of a Middlesex family though born in Antwerp. He had been ordained at Douai in 1600 and received into the Society of Jesus while a prisoner in Newgate. Ven. Thomas Tichborne was in the last stages of consumption when he was martyred.

According to Challoner in the same source quoted above, Venerable Father Thomas Tichborne (or Tichburn as he spells his name) would have died from natural causes soon anyway, "so that his apprehension and condemnation at this time was a more particular favour of divine providence, which had chosen for him, this more glorious and happy death." (p. 239)

James Duckett was hanged the day before (April 19, 1601) the priests Watkinson, Page and Tichborne. 

Note that Watkinson, Page and Duckett have been beatified (in 1929 by Pope Pius XI). Why not Thomas Tichborne? Why not the two lay martyrs who rescued Father Tichborne?

I have not been able to find any source to answer this question. 

There is, however,  another Tichborne who suffered execution during the reign of Elizabeth I: Chideock Tichborne, the brother's Tichborne cousin (his father Peter was their uncle, Nicholas pere's brother). Chideock was hanged, drawn, and quartered because he was one of the Babington Plot conspirators, wanting to remove Elizabeth I from the throne (by assassination) and replace her with the imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scots.

Venerable Thomas Hackshot, pray for us!

Venerable Nicholas Tichborne, pray for us!

Venerable Thomas Tichborne, pray for us!

May the Fourth Be With You, Today AND Tomorrow!

I will be on the Son Rise Morning Show this morning to discuss the feast of the English Martyrs about 7:50 a.m. Eastern Time (6:50 a.m. Central), in anticipation of the May 4th feast, observed in England. Anna Mitchell will rebroadcast our interview tomorrow morning during the EWTN hour (from 6:00 to 7:00 a.m. Eastern/5:00 to 6:00 a.m. Central).

There still seems to be some confusion about when this feast is celebrated: October 25 or May 4. The root of the confusion is that originally, when Pope Paul VI canonized the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales, the feast was on October 25, the date of their canonization--but it has never been celebrated on the universal Roman Calendar for all Catholics. Then in 2010, the Vatican approved changes to the Liturgical Calendar for the U.K., as this article from The Catholic Herald archives notes:

The feast of the English Martyrs is celebrated on May 4. The 40 martyrs canonised under Paul VI in 1973 (sic), previously celebrated on October 25, are celebrated with the 85 beatified Martyrs of the Reformation and the other martyrs of the 16th and 17th century. The feast coincides with the Church of England celebration of English saints and martyrs of the Reformation.

These are a significant group of saints in British Catholicism and include St Margaret Clitherow, the butcher’s wife from York who became a Catholic at the age of 18 and was arrested for harbouring a priest. She was crushed to death under a large door loaded with weights. St John Haughton (sic), St Robert Lawrence, St Augustine Webster, and St Richard Reynolds (sic) were Carthusian monks executed at Tyburn on May 4 1535.

St Cuthbert Mayne, another martyr, was a young man from Devon who went to St John’s College, Oxford, in the late 1500s, where he met St Edmund Campion and eventually became a Catholic.

Choosing the date of May 4 was appropriate, since the first martyrs, which also included Blessed John Haile, were executed for refusing to swear to Henry VIII's supremacy over the the Church of England on that date in 1535. 

(To explain the two (sic) notations above: St. Richard Reynolds was not a Carthusian monk, he was from the Briggitine House of Syon; St. John's name is usually spelled Houghton.) 

The "other martyrs of the 16th and 17th centuries" includes those beatified by Pope Leo XIII in 1886 and 1895 and by Pope Pius XI in 1929 who have not been canonized and also those declared venerable by Pope  Leo XIII in 1886:

• In 1886, Pope Leo XIII beatified 54 martyrs, including Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher and 11 others who were canonized in 1970 by Pope Paul VI;
• In 1886, Pope Leo also declared 29 English Catholic martyrs to be Venerable (several of these martyrs had died in chains, that is, is prison or because of their treatment in prison);
• In 1895, Pope Leo XIII beatified nine more martyrs;
• In 1929, Pope Pius XI beatified 136 additional martyrs, 29 of whom were later canonized.

Just to complete the sequence of dates:

• In 1935, Pope Pius XI canonized John Cardinal Fisher and Thomas
• In 1970, Pope Paul VI canonized the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales
• In 1987, Pope John Paul II beatified the 85 Martyrs of England and Wales (which did not include any of those declared Venerable in 1886)

These martyrs suffered for different reasons:

The Supremacy martyrs died because they would not swear Henry VIII's Oath of Supremacy and Oath of Succession, which both denied the spiritual, moral, and ecclesiastical authority of the Pope. The Recusant martyrs died during the reigns of Elizabeth I, James I and Charles I because they continued to practice their Catholic faith in England as missionary priests and/or laity in spite of the recusancy and penal laws against them. Finally, the Popish Plot martyrs were executed in the miscarriage of justice called the Popish Plot. Accused of conspiring in a non-existent plot, their Catholicism condemned them: the priests were sometimes found guilty of their priestly presence in England under Elizabethan statutes when no involvement in the Plot could be found.

Mapping the Martyrs

A gentleman from Yorkshire, Graeme Garvey, who has written for the St. Austin Review and published a website on World War I veterans, among his other projects, sent me this link to a map showing the locations of the births and deaths of the English and Welsh martyrs, Venerable, Blessed, and Canonized.

He has noted the martyrs from Yorkshire, Lancashire, and other locations--those not canonized from the Pilgrimage of Grace--and those martyred in London at various sites. At the bottom of the map he provides a list of the martyrs' known birthplace by county.

Not only that, but he has linked on-line sources for each martyr, including some from this blog.

This is a tremendous resource, worthy of wide distribution. My only minor criticism is that St. Oliver Plunkett, tried, convicted, and martyred in London, should have been on the map, even though he was canonized separately.

It's always great to see devotion to these great heroes of the faith--Mary's Dowry productions, the Catholic Truth Society publications, and now this great map!

Holy Catholic Martyrs of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, pray for us!