Preview: The Attempted Poisoning of Palasor in Prison

In our series on the Mementoes of the English Martyrs and Confessors based on Father Henry Sebastian Bowden's selections of their stories, we'll next look at the imprisonment of Blessed Thomas Palasor, who had been declared Venerable when the book was originally published, and his two lay companions, John Norton and John Talbot. While they were in prison, someone tried to poison them--with quite unintended consequences!

So on Monday, August 7, I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show at my usual time: about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern: please listen live here and/or listen to the podcast later here.

With the title "Poison Detected" and the verse from Mark's Gospel (16:18), "They shall take up serpents and, if they shall drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them", Father Bowden describes how Father Palasor, Mr. John Talbot, and Mr. John Norton, were captured together in Yorkshire in Norton's home and brought to prison in Durham. 

Father Palasor was served some broth for dinner and its appearance was startling: "the bone of mutton in the dish ran blood in the form of crosses and of O's in the broth" so he did not taste it or consume it. The maid took it back to the woman who had prepared it, who added some spices and sent it with the maid to the two laymen, who noticed the same phenomenon and did not taste the broth.

The maid, Mary Day, went to Father Palasor and "confessed that the broth had been poisoned by the malice of her mistress, the jailer's wife, and on her knees begged his forgiveness, and asked him to make her one of his Faith." 

So Mary was received into the Catholic Church and left the jail to serve in the household of a Catholic lady, Eleanor Forcer, "who bore testimony to the occurrence", which is included in Bishop Richard Challoner's Memoirs of Missionary Priests and other Catholicks of both Sexes who suffered Death or Imprisonment in England on account of their Religion.

As Bowden concludes this entry on the mementoes of Father Palasor and his companions: he was condemned to death for "returning to England as a priest, contrary to the statute" and they "received the same sentence for harboring and assisting him, and all three together were executed at Durham" on August 9, 1600. (p. 257)

The Catholic Encyclopedia provides some more detail about Blessed Thomas Palasor and his companions:

English martyr, born at Ellerton-upon-Swale, parish of Catterick, North Riding of Yorkshire; died at Durham 9 August, 1600. He arrived at Reims 24 July, 1592, whence he set out for Valladolid 24 August, 1592. There he was ordained priest in 1596. He was arrested in the house of John Norton, of Ravenswroth, nearly Lamesley, County Durham, who seems to have been the second son of Richard Norton, of Norton Conyers, attainted for his share in the Rebellion in 1569. Norton and his wife (if the above identification be correct, she was his second wife, Margaret, daughter of Christopher Redshaw of Owston) were arrested at the same time, and with them John Talbot, one of the Talbots of Thorton-le-Street, North Ridding of Yorkshire. All four were tried at Durham and condemned to death, Palasor for being a priest, and the others for assisting him. Another gentleman was condemned at the same time but saved his life by conforming, as they might have done. Mrs. Norton, being supposed to be with child, was reprieved. The others suffered together. Bishop Challoner tells how an attempt to poison Palasor and his companions made by the gaoler's wife resulted in the conversion of her maid-servant Mary Day.

I mentioned that at the time Bowden composed this book, Palasor had been declared Venerable, but in 1987 Pope John Paul II beatified him. Misters Norton and Talbot were also beatified among those 85 Catholic Martyrs of England and Wales. As Pope John Paul II said in his homily at the Mass of Beatification:

Among these eighty-five martyrs we find priests and laymen, scholars and craftsmen. The oldest was in his eighties, and the youngest no more than twenty-four. There were among them a printer, a bartender, a stable-hand, a tailor. What unites them all is the sacrifice of their lives in the service of Christ their Lord.

The priests among them wished only to feed their people with the Bread of Life and with the Word of the Gospel. To do so meant risking their lives. But for them this price was small compared to the riches they could bring to their people in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

The twenty-two laymen in this group of martyrs shared to the full the same love of the Eucharist. They, too, repeatedly risked their lives, working together with their priests, assisting, protecting and sheltering them. Laymen and priests worked together; together they stood on the scaffold and together welcomed death. Many women, too, not included today in this group of martyrs, suffered for their faith and died in prison. They have earned our undying admiration and remembrance.

And 25 years after their beatification, Vincent Cardinal Nichols celebrated a Mass at Westminster Cathedral on that anniversary and commented in his homily:

Of the eighty-five martyrs we remember and honour today, sixty-three were priests. They knew the risk they took in embarking on their priestly mission in these countries. They did so, above all, to bring the eternal riches of the Holy Mass to Catholics here. . . But it was the Mass that mattered. . . .

Twenty-two of these martyrs were laymen of different standings, professions and trades. They include married and family men. They were committed to the care and protection of their priests, for they too treasured the gift of the Mass above all other things. There are no women among this group of martyrs, for very few were ever put to death in that age. But many women, too, risked everything to play their part in the struggle for the faith.

Note that Mrs. Norton's supposed pregnancy prevented her from being executed by being hanged to death, which supports both the pope's and the cardinal's comments about how few women (the three canonized martyrs--Saints Margaret Clitherow, Margaret Ward, and Anne Line--being the exceptions) were martyred for the Faith in the Recusant/Penal era. But they endured great suffering, especially the loss, in Margaret Norton's case, of their husbands, and probably their homes and property, being seized by the state since their husbands were accounted traitors. Whether Margaret Norton died in prison or was released, I do not know.

Blessed Thomas Palasor, pray for us!

Blessed John Norton, pray for us!

Blessed John Talbot, pray for us!