Blessed Martyrs in York: One Priest; Three Laymen

Blessed Edward Burden: After studying at Oxford University’s Trinity College, Edward Burden, of County Durham, England, journeyed to the continent to prepare for the Catholic priesthood. He was ordained at Douai, France in 1584 and set out for England two years later. But after spending the following two years serving Catholics in Yorkshire, Father Burden was arrested by the Protestant Elizabethan authorities. While awaiting his fate in a York prison, he saw a fellow Catholic priest incarcerated with him, (Blessed) Robert Dalby, led away to be put on trial. Envious of the latter’s prospects of imminent martyrdom, Father Burden complained, “Shall I always lie here like a beast while my brother hastens to his reward? Truly, I am unworthy of such glory as to suffer for Christ.” But it was not long before Father Burden was himself tried and condemned to death for his priesthood. On November 29, 1588, he was executed by drawing and quartering at York.

Note: Father (Blessed) Robert Dalby was held in York Castle and not executed until after Blessed Edward Burden, on March 16, 1589, with Blessed John Amias. Note that like Blessed John Henry Newman in the 19th century, Father Burden was a Trinity man!

On the same date in York, eight years later, three laymen were hung, drawn and quartered, found guilty of the treason of attempting to convert another English subject to Catholicism: Blesseds George Errington, William Gibson, and William Knight (another layman, Blessed Henry Abbot had been condemned under the same charge, but his execution was delayed until March the following year). They were victims of entrapment, according to Bishop Challoner:

A certain Protestant minister, for some misdemeanour put into York Castle, to reinstate himself in the favour of his superiors, insinuated himself into the good opinion of the Catholic prisoners, by pretending a deep sense of repentance, and a great desire of embracing the Catholic truth . . . So they directed him, after he was enlarged [released], to Mr. Henry Abbot, a zealous convert who lived in Holden in the same country, to procure a priest to reconcile him . . . Mr. Abbot carried him to Carlton to the house of Esquire Stapleton, but did not succeed in finding a priest. Soon after, the traitor having got enough to put them all in danger of the law, accused them to the magistrates . . . They confessed that they had explained to him the Catholic Faith, and upon this they were all found guilty and sentenced to die.

Blessed George Errington could also have been found guilty of the felony of aiding a Catholic priest (so might the others if they knew where to find a priest) because we know he was with St. John Boste at one time, who had suffered martyrdom in 1594. I presume they were in prison because of recusancy and not paying their fines.

The three who suffered on November 29, 1596 were all beatified by Pope John Paul II as among the Eighty-five martyrs of England and Wales. Abbot was beatified in 1929 by Pope Pius XI. Father Burden was also included among the Eighty-Five Martyrs of England and Wales.

I do not find any record of it, but I suspect that Esquire Stapleton of Carlton (Richard Stapleton of Carlton?) would have been questioned by authorities--"Do Papist priests come to your house often, Esquire?"

Blessed James Thompson, aka James Pierce

Blessed James Thompson was a Yorkshireman who studied at Douai and Rheims, and who after ordination, was sent on the English mission. It was 1581. He and Nicholas Fox were ordained to all the minor orders, diaconate and priesthood within twelve (12) days in May that year. Thompson was very ill at the time and hardly able to stand. Nevertheless, he certainly recovered because he was on his way to the mission by August 10. A year plus a day later on August 11 he was arrested at the house of a Mr Branton in York. He would not acknowledge the Queen to the Supreme head of the Church so it was commanded that in prison he should be loaded with double irons.

He remained like this for 17 days before being led to the castle.On November 25 he was tried and condemned to the death of someone who had been found guilty of high treason. He spent the remainder of his time, day and night, in prayer and in labouring to gain souls to God and His church.

He was taken to the place of execution on a hurdle, where climbing the ladder he declared that he died in the Catholic Faith and for the Catholic Faith and that he had never been guilty of any treason against his queen or country.

So, after praying again for a while, commending his soul to his creator, he was flung off the ladder and was observed, whilst he was hanging, first to lift up his hands towards heaven, then to strike his breast with his right hand, and lastly, to the great astonishment of the spectators, distinctly to form the sign of the cross. He suffered at York on 28 November 1582.

Since he was found guilty in 1582, the government had to implicate him in a plot against Elizabeth I, since Parliament had not yet passed the more general treason laws that punished Catholic priests in England or the laity who aided them (1584). Merely denying the Queen's Supremacy--unless he also declared she was a heretic or schismatic--was a felony, not an act of treason. Both were punishable by death, but the death sentence in case of a felony was simply hanging, without the cruel and unusual punishment of being cut open and butchered.

He was beatified in 1886.

Two Martyrs in York on the Son Rise Morning Show

I will be on the Son Rise Morning Show at 7:45 am. Eastern/6:45 a.m. Central to discuss these two martyrs today: Blessed Marmaduke Bowes and Blessed Hugh Taylor. The most important point about these two martyrs is that they were the first to be executed under the 1584 act against the Jesuits (or any other Catholic priests) who had been born in England or Wales and then traveled to the Continent for ordination and then returned as missionaries to the recusant Catholic community, and against those who assisted them.

Blessed Marmaduke Bowes was born in Ingram Grange in Yorkshire: Married layman and father. Fearful of the persecutions of the day, he was a covert Catholic who put in appearances in the Established church to keep the authorities away. He sheltered priests on the run, and had his children raised Catholic. In 1585 his children's tutor was arrested and bribed to apostatize, turn informer, and denounce Bowes for helping priests. Bowes and his wife were arrested and imprisoned in York; she was released, but Marmaduke was convicted on the statements of the tutor.

He was the first layman executed under the law that made helping priests a felony. One of the 85 Martyrs of England, Scotland and Wales. He was hung on the 26th of November in 1585, along with Blessed Hugh Taylor, who had just arrived in York in March 1585, after his ordination in Rheims in 1584. Father Taylor was the first to suffer under the Statute 27 Eliz. c. 2. against priests as traitors passed by Parliament in 1584. Most of the Catholics executed after 1584 suffered under this statute (there were a few executed under the 1571 and 1581 statutes which made it treasonous to call the monarch a heretic or to convert or induce someone else to become Catholic, respectively). Blessed John Britton was martyred under the 1571 Statute, for example, in 1598. Blessed George Errington suffered hanging, drawing, and quartering in 1596 under the 1581 Statue, in another example, The priests who suffered before 1584 were found guilty of simple treason, which usually, as in the case of Saints Campion, Briant and Sherwin coming up on December 1, meant that the Crown accused the priests of some conspiracy against the Queen.

Blessed Marmaduke may be called a martyr in spite of himself--he had tried to maintain a public face of conformity, attending Church of England services to avoid suspicion or fines, but secretly he helped priests and raised his children in the Catholic Faith. Betrayed by a Catholic, he was arrested and charged based on evidence offered by his children's tutor.

A Lancashire Martyr in York

Blessed Edward Osbaldeston was an English martyr, born about 1560. Не was hanged, drawn, and quartered at York, 16 November 1594.

Son of Thomas Osbaldeston, and nephew of Edward Osbaldeston, of Osbaldeston Hall, near Blackburn, Lancashire, he went to the English College of Douai, then at Reims, where he was ordained deacon in December, 1583, and priest 21 September 1585. He was sent on the mission 27 April 1589, and was apprehended at night through the instrumentality of an apostate priest named Thomas Clark at an inn at Tollerton, Yorkshire, upon St. Jerome's day, 30 September 1594. He had said his first Mass on the feast day of St. Jerome, and in consequence had a great devotion to that saint.

The day following his arrest he was taken to York where he was tried at the next assizes and attained of high treason for being a priest.

Bishop Challoner prints the greater part of a letter addressed by the martyr to his fellow-prisoners in York Castle, the full text of which is still extant, and which reveals the great humility and serene trust in God with which he anticipated his death. Blessed Osbaldeston describes his faith in God and his distrust in himself and paraphrases St. Paul in proclaiming that he can do all things in Him who comforts him. He forgave Thomas Clark for betraying him and prayed that he would be able to die for the honor of Jesus and the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Edward Osbaldeston was among the eighty-five martyrs of England and Wales beatified by Pope John Paul II on 22 November 1987.

Meeting in Prison: Blesseds Lacy and Kirkman

Blessed William Lacy or Lacey, born and raised in Yorkshire, had been married twice and widowed twice before he went to Rome, studied for the priesthood and was ordained in 1581. As a layman, Lacy had suffered imprisonment for his Catholicism in Yorkshire, paid many fines for not attending Anglican services, and had lost his official post as coroner. After his ordination, he traveled to England with Jesuit Fathers Jasper Heywood (John Donne's uncle) and William Holt. Upon his return home he was arrested in York on July 22, 1582 while present at a Mass celebrated by Thomas Bell with another martyr-to-be, Blessed William Hart and suffered greatly in prison. He was loaded with heavy irons, confined in an underground dungeon, and subjected to numerous examinations before arraignment on August 11--it's not clear what he he was found guilty of, since the Elizabethan statute that made the presence of a priest in England an act of treason. He refused to accept Elizabeth as Supreme Governor of the Church and had some items blessed by Pope Gregory XIII, so that was enough to find him guilty of some treason.

He and Blessed Richard Kirkman met in prison. Kirkman was born at Addingham, in the West Riding. He went to Douai in 1577 to study for the priesthood and was ordained at the English College in Reims on Holy Saturday in 1579. He returned to England in August of that year with St. Alexander Briant and was arrested a year later on August 8, after his lay host and protector, Robert Dykmore of Lincolnshire was arrested. Before execution, he was moved to an underground dungeon. His last words were from Psalm 120: 'Woe to me that I dwell in Meshech, that I live among the tents of Kedar! Too long have I lived among those who hate peace.'

Neither priest had much opportunity to serve the Catholics in northern England, altough Blessed William Lacy may have had a year. Blessed William Lacy is honored on December 1 every year at the Venerable English College in Rome. The students gather in the chapel to sing Te Deum Laudamus before Alberti's Martyrs' Picture. Blessed Richard Kirkman is remembered as one of the Martyrs of Douai at Allen Hall in Chelsea, London.

These two martyrs were hung and quartered on August 22, in the year 1582, in York. The Lord President of the North was Henry Hastings, Earl of Huntington, appointed by Elizabeth I in 1572 (his mother was Catherine Pole, Blessed Margaret Pole's granddaughter!)--he was a devout Puritan and hated anything Catholic (rather awkward family circumstances, when his wife was a Pole!), and although his religion irritated Elizabeth, she found him very useful in the North of England during the crises of Mary, Queen of Scots' imprisonment and the Spanish Armada. He was also most diligent in the apprehension of Catholic recusants and Catholic priests.

Two More Yorkshire Martyrs

Blessed John Fingley or Finglow: An English martyr; b. at Barnby, near Howden, Yorkshire; executed at York, 8 August, 1586. After matriculating from Caius College Cambridge in 1573, he was ordained priest at the English College, Reims, 25 March, 1581, whence the following month he was sent on the English mission. After labouring for some time in the north of England, he was seized and confined in Ousebridge Kidcote, York, where for a time he endured serious discomforts, alleviated slightly by a fellow-prisoner. He was finally tried for being a Catholic priest and reconciling English subjects to the ancient Faith, and condemned to be hanged, drawn, and quartered.

Blessed Robert Bickerdike: Martyr, a Yorkshire layman, b. at Low Hall, near Knaresborough (date unknown), but residing at York; d. 5 August (or 8 October), 1585. Arrested for giving a priest, St. John Boste, a glass of ale, he was also accused at his trial of using treasonable words. He was acquitted, but Judge Rhodes, determined to have his blood, had him removed from the city gaol to the Castle and tried once more at the Lammas Assizes on the same charge. He was then condemned. One of his offences was that, when Blessed Francis Ingleby was being dragged on the hurdle to execution, hearing a minister's wife say: "Let us go into the Tolbooth and we shall see the traitorly thief come over on the hurdle", he said, "No; no thief, but as true as thou art". These words were supposed to be the cause of his death. He suffered at York.

These two martyrs were among the 85 beatified in 1987 by Blessed John Paul II. I've recently finished Eric Ives' The Reformation Experience, in which he comments on how the missionary priests ignored northern England, well at least the Jesuit missionaries. I think he errs in thinking that the Jesuits were the only priests in the mission field. From the occurences of martyrdom in York, including St. Margaret Clitherow, crushed to death for refusing the plead when she hid Catholic priests in her Protestant husband's home, there was missionary activity in northern England!

Martyrs of Dorchester and Yorkshire

Two groups of Catholic martyrs in Elizabethan England, in 1594 in Dorchester and in 1597 in York--both comprised of a priest and the laymen who protected him:

Blessed John Cornelius, priest and martyr
Blessed Thomas Bosgrave, martyr
Blessed John Carey, martyr
Blessed Patrick Salmon, martyr

John, Thomas, John and Patrick were executed together at Dorchester on July 4, 1594: John Cornelius, who trained for the priesthood at Douai and Rome, was arrested in April; his companions were arrested for assisting him. John became a Jesuit while imprisoned in London. All of them were from Ireland:

Father John Cornelius, their leader, was born in 1557 to Irish parents who had moved to Great Britain. A Dorsetshire Catholic knight, Sir John Arundel, sent him to Oxford University to study. But John was too Catholic in his convictions to be pleased with the "new religion" that dominated the University. Feeling called rather to the Catholic priesthood, he crossed the Channel and enrolled at the English college in Rheims for holy orders. From Rheims he went on to the English College in Rome to complete his theology, and it was at Rome that he was ordained a priest.
Return to England as a Catholic priest was at that time forbidden under pain of death. But Father John, a man of prayer and zeal, saw in that law a challenge rather than a deterrent, as did the rest of the contemporary English priests who set service to persecuted Catholics as their top priority. His assignment was to the Catholics of Dorset. These priests' ministry was a "cloak-and-dagger" operation, since they were always in danger of discovery and arrest. Their capture could mean also the arrest and punishment of anybody who assisted them.

Naturally, the missionaries' terms of service were usually short, for the police were alert and aggressive. Cornelius (he also went by the alias of Mohun, although his real surname seems to have been O'Mahony) was finally seized by the sheriff of Dorset on April 24, 1594, at the Chideock Castle of Lady Arundel.

Having seized the priest by surprise, the Sheriff was about to hurry him off hatless. Now, in that hat-conscious age, to be hatless was to appear uncivilized. Thomas Bosgrave, a gallant young Cornish nephew of Sir John Arundel and a witness to the arrest, stepped forward and offered Father John his own hat. "The honor I owe to your function," he declared, "may not suffer me to see you go bareheaded!" It was a simple gesture of charity to a priest, but he was to pay for his piety. The Sheriff promptly arrested Bosgrave, too, for "aiding" a Catholic clergyman. He likewise arrested two serving-men of this Catholic household, Dubliners John Carey and Patrick Salmon. Content, no doubt, with the day's work, the county official then led his catch off to jail.

Cornelius, the most important of them, was taken to London to be examined by Queen Elizabeth's Privy Council. The Council had him stretched on the rack to force him to name all those who had given him shelter or assistance. Torture would not open his lips, however, so he was sent back to Dorchester for trial, along with the three lay captives. On July 2, the court declared the priest guilty of high treason under the law that forbade Catholic priests to enter England and remain there. Bosgrave, Carey and Salmon were pronounced guilty of felony for aiding and abetting Father John. The sentence was the same for all: hanging, drawing, and quartering.

After the court had published its judgment, it offered all four men a reprieve if they would give up their Catholic faith. All four refused.

The execution took place at Dorchester two days later. The three laymen were hanged first. Each made a Catholic profession of faith before the trap was sprung. Father John then kissed the feet of his hanging companions. He was not allowed to make any formal statement; but he did manage to state that he had been lately admitted into the Jesuits, and would have been en route to the Jesuit novitiate in Flanders had he not been arrested.

Blessed William Andleby, priest and martyr
Blessed Henry Abbot, martyr
Blessed Thomas Warcop, martyr
Blessed Edward Fulthorp, martyr

Fr Andleby served in Yorkshire, and Henry, Thomas and Edward were three laymen who assisted and sheltered him; they were executed together at York on July 4 in 1597 under Elizabeth I. Blessed William Andleby was a convert--he had thought to argue Doctor William Allen out of his Catholic faith and instead found himself argued into it:

He was born at Etton in Yorkshire of a well-known gentle family. At twenty-five he went abroad to take part in the religious wars in the Spanish Netherlands, and called at Douai to interview Dr. Allen, whom he attempted to confute in argument. Next day he recognized that Allen was right, was converted, and eventually became a priest. Mention is found of his having served at Mr. Tyrwhitt's, in Lincolnshire, and also of his having succoured the Catholic prisoners in Hull blockhouse. "His zeal for souls was such as to spare no pains and to fear no dangers. For the first four years of his mission he travelled always on foot, meanly attired, and carrying with him usually in a bag his vestments and other things for saying Mass; for his labours lay chiefly among the poor, who were not shocked with such things. Afterwards, humbly yielding to the advice of his brethren, he used a horse and went somewhat better clad. Wonderful was the austerity of his life in frequent watchings, fastings, and continual prayer, his soul so absorbed in God that he often took no notice of those he met; by which means he was sometimes exposed to suspicions and dangers from the enemies of his faith, into whose hands he at last fell after twenty years' labour in the vineyard of the Lord." (Challoner). He was condemned for his priestly character, and suffered with three laymen, John Abbot, Thomas Warcop, and Edward Fulthrop--Abbot and Fulthrop were also converts to Catholicism from the Church of England.