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!