Champion of the Mass

Leo Griffin, cfc

St Margaret Clitherow of York

· Leo Griffin, 1920

First published November 1992

by Spectrum Publications Pty Ltd

PO Box 75 Richmond Victoria 3121

in conjunction with

Trustees of the Christian Brothers

156 The Avenue Parkville Victoria 3052

Printed by Spectrum Publications

PO Box 75 Richmond Victoria 3121

Ph: (03) 429 1404

Graphics: Gunnar Neeme

Typesetting: Scott Howard

Second edition, October 2001,

Tamanaraik Press,

7/67 Collins Street,

Thornbury Vic 3071

ISBN: 0 86786 162 2

Details of St Margaret Clitherow's life are taken from

St Margaret Clitherow by Katherine Longley and are used

by permission of the publishers; Anthony Clarke Publishers,

Wheathampstead, England

Contents

Acknowledgements

1 Born into Troublous Times

2 The Davygate Inn

3 Mystery Plays in York

4 Teenage Experience of Turmoil

5 A Happy Marriage

6 An Execution in the Shambles

7 A Very Dangerous Decision

8 Growth in Grace

9 A Prisoner of Christ

10 The Blessed Society of the Castle

11 A Spiritual Detachment

12 A Very Secret Place

13 Heroic Seminary Priests

14 Sound Spiritual Direction

15 Arrest in the Shambles

16 The Jury Problem

17 No Trial at All

18 Faithful to the End

19 The Harvest

20 Epilogue

21 A Tribute: Gerard.Manley Hopkins S.J

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

ST MARGARET CLITHEROW'S story is a gripping account of a minority's struggle to the death. The message for today's orthodox Catholics is instructive, inspiring and challenging. St Margaret Clitherow of York: Champion of the Mass, is also a great adventure story in itself. Violent deaths, betrayals, intrigue, heroic sacrifices and lofty ideals blend to build tension. Confirmed believer or skeptic, the vivid climax of Margaret's execution burns itself into the mind.

Brother Leo Griffin is a member of the Congregation of Christian Brothers. He has taught in many of the Congregation's schools in Melbourne and for twelve years or so was a lecturer in the Brothers' Teachers' College at Box Hill, Victoria. He holds degrees from Melbourne University and the University of St John Lateran, Rome. This book is the first fruit of his retirement at "Mt Sion", Parkville, Victoria.

Details of St Margaret Clitherow's life are taken from Saint Margaret Clitherow by Katharine Longley and are used by permission of the publishers; Anthony Clarke Publishers, Wheathampstead, England. I am very grateful also for resource material from Mrs Anne Rogers, and her excellent typing of the manuscript. Photo credits: Brother John Higgins.

The first edition sold completely during the 1990s, and this second, more simply produced edition, is made available to meet requests for the book as they continue to arrive.

Brother Peter Richardson, Treacy Centre, Parkville, Victoria did the lion's share of the work preparing the script for publication, and Brother Barry Coldrey acted as editor. To all of these people I am deeply indebted.

T L Griffin, cfc

Mount Sion Hostel,

Treacy Centre,

156 The Avenue,

Parkville Vic 3052

Australia

1 October 2001

1. Born into Troublous Times

York is one of the oldest cathedral cities in England. Its origin can be traced back to the days of the early Britons themselves, times well before Roman legions ever occupied its ancient site on the River Ouse about three hundred kilometres north-west of London.

Paulinus, a fellow Roman missionary of St Augustine of Canterbury, in 627 baptised Edwin, King of the Northumbrians, in an old wooden church on the spot where York Minster now stands. The building of York Minster, known also as St Peter's Cathedral, was begun in 1230 and completed in 1474. It remains today, a testimony in crafted stone and stained-glass brilliance to the Catholic faith, architectural achievements and superb artistry of the late Middle Ages.

Probably the Wars of the Roses between 1455 and 1497, when the white rose of the House of York and the red rose of the House of Lancaster, symbols of the two royal families and their supporters as they battled intermittently for succession to the English throne, saw the last of military movements in and around the city of York until Robert Aske and his rebels arrived at its gates in 1536.

Two years earlier in far away London three hundred kilometres was a great distance in those days of slow and difficult travel King Henry VIII by an act of the English Parliament had had himself declared supreme Head on earth of the Catholic Church in England, thereby automatically excluding all authority of the Pope within his kingdom. As a consequence, refusal by any of Henry's subjects to accept him as such was an act of treason punishable by death.

York in its isolation from London was not easily open to, nor receptive of, new ideas from its far away seat of Government so the city unhesitatingly admitted Robert Aske and the King's political and religious adversaries. But later it paid a heavy price for its disobedience to London. The strong arm of Henry VIII reached York the next year, 1537. Robert Aske was hanged in York Castle; two white-robed monks forfeited their lives on the York Knavesmire for their brave denial that Henry VIII could be supreme head of Christ's Church in England. In addition, between 1536 and 1540 staunchly Catholic York became the painful witness of Henry VIII's suppression of its monasteries and convents, the fate of all religious houses throughout England. Their monks and nuns were dispersed; their lands and goods became the property of the crown. In 1532, four years before Henry VIII's ecclesiastical policies had troubled the city, a certain Thomas Middleton married Jane

Turner in St Martin's Church, Coney Street, York. Thomas Middleton was a well-to-do wax chandler and his wife, Jane, came from a family of successful innkeepers. Her father was mine host at the 'Angel', a well-established inn near Gillygate Street, and just outside the ancient city's walls.

The early married life of Thomas and Jane Middleton would scarcely have been affected by Henry VIII's extraordinary assumption of ecclesiastical power. In the main, only people holding public office and members of the hierarchy were required to take the Oath of Supremacy recognising him as Supreme Ruler of the Church in England. In practice Henry wanted the doctrines and devotions of the Catholic Church to remain intact, its papal headship alone excepted. So Thomas Middleton was free to ply his trade in wax and to supply at least his parish of St Martin with all it needed in the way of candles, tapers and the votive lights which burned in honour of the Blessed Sacrament or before statues of Our Lady and the saints. He and Jane were unhindered, too, in their attendance at Sunday Mass and regular Confession. As well, they could still, without any kind of criticism, watch one of York's most popular mystery plays, the Corpus Christi play, held yearly on the first Thursday after Trinity Sunday in honour of Our Lord's presence in the Blessed Sacrament.

But Henry VIII died in 1547. He was succeeded by Edward VI, his ten-year-old son, born to him and his third wife, Jane Seymour, who died soon after Edward's birth. Jane Seymour's brother, Edward, assumed the title Duke of Somerset when he became his nephew's Royal Protector and then, as Edward's regent, ruled England in conjunction with a group of powerful men, known as the King's Council. Subsequently, he and his brother, Thomas, became immensely enriched by acquisition of church lands. Edward Seymour, as Duke of Somerset, therefore, had no temporal incentive to return England to 'the old religion' under the authority of the Pope. Moreover, he and influential members of the King's Council had been cryptic followers of Protestant reformers on the continent either Martin Luther, Huldrych Zwingli or John Calvin during Henry's reign. It had been an exceedingly dangerous course to follow since Henry not only hanged Catholics as traitors but burnt Protestants as well for the crime

of heresy.

Prominent among the members of King Edward's Council was Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, and previously held in high regard by Henry VIII. It was Cranmer who had declared the marriage between Henry and Catherine null and void and who even during Henry's reign had been strongly influenced by European Protestantism. It seems that Cranmer at the beginning of Edward's reign was already Protestant in his theology of the Blessed Eucharist, accepting in its regard the doctrine of John Calvin at Geneva rather than that of Germany's Martin Luther. Later it is clear that he shared with all Protestant reformers of the day, a complete rejection of the Catholic doctrine on the Mass.

On Pentecost Sunday, 1549, what we now call the First Book of Common Prayer of Edward VI was introduced into all English churches. It was the brain-child of Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury. It provided a liturgy in English for the celebration of the Lord's Supper. Henceforth, it was a crime to say Mass or to assist at Mass in England. But the Duke of-Somerset and Cranmer did not have everything their way. Uneducated farm laborers in parts of England, notably in Cornwall and Devon, rose up in armed rebellion and demanded the return of their much loved Latin Mass. Some parish priests defied Cranmer and gave the people back their Mass. However, retribution was swift and bloody. The royal army slaughtered over four thousand humble working men. In the aftermath hundreds more were publicly hanged on market days along with rebellious priests, one at least in his Mass vestments, and others, dangled from their church towers, served as terrible warnings against opposition to the Regent and his Council. In London itself Bishop Bonner refused to implement Government decrees. He walked out of his own Cathedral of St Paul rather than hear a Protestant preacher sent to attack Christ's presence in the Blessed Sacrament, and duly went to prison for his adherence to ancient Catholic doctrines. The Government through sheer brutality and superior force was soon able to crush the popular religious uprising in the west of England but it met resistance from another quarter not so easy to silence nor to crush the Princess Mary. Mary was the daughter of Henry VIII and Queen Catherine of Aragon. She was the half sister of Edward VI and next in line to the English throne. In a letter to the Duke of Somerset and members of the King's Council (by then Edward was twelve or thirteen years of age and precociously Protestant) Mary made her position in religious matters quite clear. She wrote: 'As for my priests, I know what they have to do. The pain of your laws is but imprisonment for a short time and if they will refuse to say Mass for fear of imprisonment they may do therein as they like. But none of your new service will be said in my house'.

Priests loyal to Mary continued to say Mass for her and went to prison for it. The Government did not dare touch the troublesome princess. She was popular with the people and, besides, a cousin of Charles V, King of Spain and Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. But it kept course in its resolve to destroy the Mass. On 24 November, 1550, the King's Council issued orders that all altars in churches throughout the Kingdom should be destroyed and replaced by Communion Tables. These orders were accompanied by explanations signed by Cranmer and his associates that the use of altars promoted 'the superstitious opinions of the Popish Mass', whereas Communion Tables served adequately for those who came to the Lord's Supper to eat and drink spiritually of His Body and Blood.

In this statement in 1550, Cranmer revealed his theological stance concerning Christ's presence at the celebration of the Last Supper. He stood firmly in the school of Zwingli at Zurich and that of Calvin at Geneva. For him as for them, there was no material presence of Christ in the elements of His Last Supper. Here all three differed from Martin Luther. Luther, 'captured', as he once wrote, by Our Lord's words of institution found in the New Testament, maintained belief in a real presence. For Luther, Christ's Body and Blood were present with the bread and wine at the celebration of the Supper of the Lord. Ironically, it was Luther's own insistence on the sole authority of the Bible privately interpreted, that led to these contradictory interpretations of Christ's Eucharistic presence. But Luther agreed with his fellow Protestant reformers that the new celebration of the Lord's Supper was not in any way a re-presentation of Christ's atoning Sacrifice once offered for the salvation of the world. For him, too, altars were places of sacrifice; tables covered with white linen cloths were most suitable for a simple commemoration of the Last Supper of the Lord. Luther, of course, had given the lead in his early rejection of the Sacrifice of the Mass.

In due course the Protestant edicts of Edward VI's Council reached conservative, Catholic York. They were greeted with little enthusiasm there; but York Minster's high altar of grey-blue limestone, fifteen feet long, was duly transferred upside-down to a newly built church to help pave its centre aisle. In Protestantism there was no place for the supplication of the saints, so in York Minster their statues were smashed and their shrines destroyed. Even their depiction in beautiful stained-glass was not spared. Protestant preachers swarmed in to inveigh against the use of holy water, the sprinkling of ashes on Ash Wednesday and the carrying of palms on Palm Sunday. All such practices were 'unholy superstitions', 'inventions of the devil', to be eradicated root and

branch. Equally odious to the Protestants were candles, tapers and votive lamps. Such Popish inventions could have no part in their austere, godly worship.

By the time the liturgical reforms of Edward VI's government were being enforced in York, Thomas and Jane Middleton would have been married about eighteen years. Three of their four children had probably been born by then. We have no record of how Thomas and Jane reacted personally to the changes in worship at their parish church of St Martin. There must certainly have been a drop in sales in Thomas's wax chandlering business but he was a wealthy man well able to withstand the recession in trade brought on by the establishment of 'the new religion'.

In 1553 a daughter was born to Thomas and Jane Middleton, their fourth and last child. At baptism they named her Margaret. The year of Margaret's birth was momentous for the whole of England. In July that year Edward VI, not yet seventeen, died in London. His second Lord Protector, the Duke of Northumberland, had Lady Jane Grey, a fervent Protestant, publicly proclaimed Queen of England. Jane, the young reluctant queen, was a niece of Henry VIII. But Princess Mary bravely rallied England to her own cause, fought for her inheritance and won. Then, enjoying immense popular support, was crowned Mary I of England. By then the unfortunate Jane had reigned for only nine days. With Mary's coronation, England returned to 'the old religion'. The Pope's authority was re-established, altars returned to the churches for the celebration

of Mass, and Catholics could resume once more their ancient religious beliefs and practices, no longer butts of jibe and ridicule in numerous

cheap pamphlets and vitriolic sermons.

Early in Mary's reign Thomas Middleton began a three year term as one of the four church wardens at St Martin's, Coney Street. In 1555 he was largely responsible for the preparation of ceremonies at Candlemas and Easter. One can only wonder whether he took his small daughter Margaret along with him while at work or at his devotions in St Martin's.

An interesting case came before the ecclesiastical court of York in 1556. The parish clerk accused the curate of St Martin's, Robert Fox, of omitting an important part of the baptismal formula (in Latin, of course) when baptising some two years earlier one of Mr Middleton's children. The child could well have been Margaret herself; but there is no evidence that her father took any part in the court proceedings although the case was brought forward by the other three church wardens of St Martin's.

At 4 o'clock in the morning of 17 November, 1558, Queen Mary I closed her eyes forever on a world that had not been very kind to her over a life of forty-two years. The priest celebrating Mass at her bedside had just reached the consecration when Mary breathed her last, long sigh. It was a fitting end for a brave woman who defended the Mass when it was proscribed in England and restored it when political and religious power were in her hands. Mary was succeeded by her half-sister, Elizabeth, the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.

Elizabeth's title to the throne lay in her succession to it as set out in Henry VIII's will. But the act of Henry's Parliament whereby she was declared illegitimate had never been annulled. However, after Queen Mary's suppression of them, many Protestants, especially those who had left England during Mary's reign, saw great grounds for hope in the accession of Elizabeth. It seems that from the moment of her enthronement, Elizabeth I was determined to settle 'the religious question'. Her first Parliament in 1559 passed two important acts. By its Act of Supremacy, Elizabeth became Supreme Head of the Church of England. The Pope's jurisdiction, restored in Mary's reign, was again revoked. Failure by any person to accept Elizabeth 's ecclesiastical power meant, for the first offense, loss of goods and property. If these valued less than twenty pounds ­ a large sum in those days imprisonment for a year. The second offense brought loss of all property, civil rights and imprisonment at the Queen's pleasure; the third, death for treason.

By the Act of Uniformity of this Parliament Elizabeth's attempt to settle for all time England's religious controversies the second Book of Common Prayer of Edward VI's reign was reintroduced. Thus the English liturgy of the Supper of the Lord again replaced the Mass but the Black Rubric of the Prayer Book had been omitted. This rubric had specifically denied any real presence of Christ's Body and Blood at the celebration of the Lord's Supper. However, the Act of Uniformity went further than to provide a common form of worship for England. Attendance at the parish church on Sundays and holy days was made obligatory, a fine of twelve pence then equal to two days' pay for the average laborer was to be imposed on all defaulters. To shore up further uniformity of worship, the ecclesiastical courts were empowered to imprison all who refused to attend their parish churches on Sundays.

Elizabeth's attempt at settlement of the religious question became effective in St Martin's Church, Coney Street, York, early in 1561. Its high altar and two side altars were removed; the cost of destroying its statues was four pence; but there were no stained glass windows broken, only a plain wooden board erected on which were written the Ten Commandments. This time it did not fall to Thomas Middleton to supervise or carry out another reversal in church policy the third within twelve years at St Martin's. He was no longer a warden there. But before his death in May 1567 he had become one of the two sheriffs of the City of York and had been elected a member of its Privy Council. His last will and testament reveals also that by the time of his death Thomas Middleton was a man of property and considerable wealth. His wife, Jane, was given a life's interest in most of his property which after her death was to revert to their children as set out for each in his will.

2 The Davygate lnn

When Thomas Middleton died in 1567 his daughter, Margaret, was fourteen years old. The first five years of her life, the duration of Queen Mary's reign, had been completely Catholic. Margaret would have been about eight in 1561 when Queen Elizabeth's changes in belief and liturgy were being implemented in York. It is possible, therefore, that experiences of Latin Masses attended with her family in St Martin's or at the Minster still lingered in her memories of early childhood years. It is possible, too, that she recalled the complaints of her aged father at Elizabeth's reversal of what Mary had restored and his disinclination to attend again the celebration of the Supper of the Lord carried out in English. Maybe, more probably, she remembered his grumbling at another drop in the sale of candles and the end of demand for votive lights.

Of greater significance, it is reasonable to surmise that Margaret's elderly, devout father had at times directed his little daughter's eyes to the high altar in St Martin's with its gilded cross, and to the silver pyx above it where the Blessed Sacrament was housed. Later Margaret could have remembered this if she caught sight of pyxes, censers, holy water stoups or Mass vestments for sale on market stalls. However? it appears that Thomas Middleton did accept, at least outwardly Elizabeth's Act of Uniformity, for in 1567 he was buried in a prominent place, 'before the high choir' in St Martin's church. By then the high altar had been gone some half a dozen years. Yet, it is not unlikely that some of York's clergy, like their counterparts in the reign of King Edward VI, and about

whom Bishop Hooper had complained to the Calvinist, Bucer, still retained their vestments and candles; and where they used to celebrate the Mass of the Apostles, celebrated in a Catholic way the Communion of the Apostles; and replaced the outlawed High Mass by a High Communion. This might have been the case at places in traditionally Catholic York and especially at St Martin's where Thomas Grayson was vicar.

Thomas Grayson was a firm friend of the Middletons. He was first witness to Thomas's will and in 1567, the year Thomas Middleton died, he had to appear before the High Commissioners to answer to a charge of having Catholic books in his possession. Among these forbidden books was in all likelihood, a Latin Sarum Missal which should have been burnt seven or eight years earlier. However, the fact is that three-quarters of England's parish clergy went along with Elizabeth's Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity and the land once known as Our Lady's dowry was forced into Protestantism, the implacable enemy of any devotion or prayer to Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and particularly to her world-renowned shrine at Walsingham, a tiny village in the east-coast county of Norfolk. But, to their credit, the vast majority of Bishops from Mary's reign stood firm. Only two of them accepted Elizabeth's settlement of the religious question. The others, along with twelve deans and fifteen heads of colleges either quitted their posts or were deprived of them and imprisoned. Nonetheless, the old religion, though proscribed, survived. It had been on English soil among the Roman legionaries long before St Augustine of Canterbury and his Roman missionaries had re-established it in England over a thousand years before Elizabeth's time. So, despite the penalties, a devoted minority of the English people clung to it, the ancient faith of their fathers, of the Mass, of the Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, of the intercession of Our Lady and the saints, and of obedience to Christ's vicar on earth, the Pope.

Elizabeth's ecclesiastical policies spelled out by her first Parliament in 1559 did not fully satisfy England's extreme Protestants either. They had looked forward to the eventual formation of a church more closely modelled on the teachings of John Calvin in his stronghold at Geneva, the type of church vigorously propounded in the fiery sermons of John Knox in neighboring Scotland. But Elizabeth stood her ground, retained her bishops under her authority, of course and refused to bow either to Switzerland or her northern neighbour.

Soon there developed in England at least two distinct and dissenting groups. On the one hand, were the dissatisfied Protestants who clamored for further reforms in liturgy and doctrine and later became the Puritans; on the other, the Catholics who utterly rejected Elizabeth's state church and refused to attend its services. They were soon singled out as recusants.

As early as 1564 the Bishop of Hereford in a letter to Elizabeth's Privy Council, complained about the recusants and sought its help in dealing with them. His Lordship reported:

There be certain thought to have Masses in their houses, which come very seldom or not at all to Church... which keep as it were, schools in their houses of Popery, deriding and mocking this religion and the Minister thereof, which be a marvellous stumbling block to the Queen's majesty's loving subjects in this country... I confess I am not able to reform these, except I should be mightily backed by your honorable government.

So here it is writ clear: this religion was forced on people by an all-powerful government.

Seemingly unruffled by any of the prevailing religious squalls, Jane Middleton, who had been fifteen years younger than her late husband, did not remain long in widow's weeds. On 8 September, 1567, just four months after Thomas's death, she married Henry May in St Martin's, Coney Street. At the time, Jane would have been fifty-two or three and Henry in his early twenties.

This marriage radically altered the tenor of Margaret Middleton's teenage life. Her enterprising, young stepfather scarcely ten years her senior soon turned the large, comfortable home in Davygate into a fashionable, flourishing inn where her mother with experience of inn-keeping from her maiden days at the 'Angel', easily assumed the role of hostess. Henry May had. fallen on his feet when he won the hand of Jane Middleton. With her wealth and his energetic business drive the future of the new inn at Davygate was rosy. And so was Henry May's. He had come penniless to York from Hampshire in the south of England his accent betrayed him but with a sound knowledge of the wine trade, and, it seems, with a firm determination to make a success of life.

Of how Jane's family accepted their stepfather's presence and power in their home, we have no record whatsoever. Her eldest daughter, Alice, had probably married Thomas Hutchinson by then; her sons Thomas, a tile and brick maker, and George, a draper, could also have been living away, but Margaret aged fourteen was certainly at home. From later developments in Henry May's career it is plain that George Middleton was on good terms with his stepfather and from Margaret's own reminiscence we know that she too, was soon caught up in the business and social whirl of life at the Davygate Inn. And what a sea change Henry May must have introduced into Margaret's sheltered home atmosphere. Her old, gout-stricken and, perhaps, grumpy father, without much loss of time, had been replaced by a bright, personable, young man.

But Henry May was possessed of more than personal charm and a fine business eye; others found him a person who could be trusted. Accordingly, four months after his marriage, he was elected a chamberlain (trustee) of the Corporation of the city of York; two months later he became one of the privileged eight persons who could sell wines and keep taverns in York. No doubt Henry May's meteoric rise to prominence among York's oligarchy was mostly on the backs of his relations by marriage, the Middletons and the Turners. They opened the doors, as it were, but it was the dynamism of Henry's own personal magnetism and native ability that got him in.

From the outset Henry must have realised that he had no lasting home at Davygate. His elderly wife, Jane, held the house and property only in trust. After her death it would belong to her daughter, Margaret, as provided for in Thomas Middleton's will. Awareness of this must certainly have affected Henry May's attitude towards his younger stepdaughter in their four years together at Davygate. From their subsequent careers we know that both were high-spirited and strong-willed, characteristics that engendered, without doubt, a mutual respect. But, on the other hand, young Margaret Middleton was greatly influenced by the life-style and civic attainments of her glamorously popular stepfather.

Henry May, hailing from the south of England, lacked the solid, Catholic background associated with people from the northern counties of England generally. He was far from being a recusant. On the contrary, his influence spread even within the precincts of Elizabeth's established church. As a church warden at St Martin's he followed in Thomas Middleton's footsteps but in a totally dissimilar way. He became one of the four church wardens charged with the duty of eliminating from St Martin's, Coney Street, all relics of the Popish Mass. Henry and his co-workers forthwith sold the silver, interior-gilded chalice and paten and replaced them with a simple silver communion cup. They spent eight pence on an anti-Catholic pamphlet, and Henry May's brother, Roger, was paid twelve pence for two days' work in removing the rood-loft. The stained glass windows in which Our Lady and the Saints reigned in glory were left intact they were too expensive to replace. Notwithstanding, the new archbishop of York, Grindal, was mightily pleased with the wardens'

decatholicisation of St Martin's and after his first official visit there went with other local church notables to dine at Henry May's inn.

It has been noted, perhaps not too unkindly, that whenever Henry May implemented anti-Catholic legislation, he gained some personal advantage. Wine sales at the inn, for example, rose significantly when all communicants at St Martin's began receiving communion under both kinds. This aside, Henry became a pillar of the established church at St Martin's. He served a second term as church warden, had the honour of a special pew marked 'Mr. Alderman May', and went on to become a trustee of all parish property. Subsequently Henry's stepson, George Middleton, joined him as a fellow trustee at St Martin's. After her conversion Margaret herself regretted the years she had lived outside Christ's Church 'in vanities and schism'. So apparently Henry May not only swept Jane Middleton off her feet but her two younger children as well.

3 Mystery Plays in York

Up until the reign of Edward VI, 1547-1553, England shared with France and Italy in particular a proud reputation for its staging of mystery plays. Among the English cities most notable for the production these plays were Chester, York, Coventry and Lincoln. The production of a mystery play a dramatisation of salvation history from God's creation of the world until the Last Judgment day was a large-scale and expensive operation. It was usually undertaken by the city corporation or the members of craft guilds.

In the middle of the sixteenth century, York was a large and thriving city. It had numerous craft guilds with sizeable memberships and it was these guilds that saw to the performances of the city's mystery plays.

In 1568 York's city corporation decided to have the Creed play staged again it along with the Pater Noster and Corpus Christi plays was always popular. This revival of an old Catholic tradition in York must have been somewhat of a blow to Henry May. As one of the city's eight chamberlains he automatically had the duty of collecting funds from the various craft guilds to meet the costs of the play's production. In past times the different guilds had vied with one another for excellence in the presentation of parts of the play under their responsibility. It fell to the wax chandlers' guild, for example, to present the Shepherds' Play which was performed at night and required great illumination. Margaret Middleton probably remembered, as a child, standing with her father to watch the wagon-borne pageant arriving at 'the station' in front of the Common Hall and the fascinating dramatisation of the shepherds' visit to the infant Christ that followed.

But things had changed in York since Margaret's childhood. The Lord Mayor and his corporation had not taken the precaution of consulting the local church authorities before their decision to stage the Creed Play. When shown the text, Dean Hutton did not like it and, in that 'happy time of the Gospel', he advised against performance of the play. That was the end of the Creed Play. Henry May, a stalwart Protestant, was saved the invidious task of raising funds for a Popish pageant.

But the people of York loved their mystery plays. Through persistence they succeeded in having the Corpus Christi play presented in 1568 and 1569 but only after Dean Hutton had radically mutilated its text to make it conform with Protestant doctrine on the Blessed Eucharist. The play thus became meaningless since its original purpose was to celebrate Christ's real (special) presence in the Blessed Sacrament. So it, too, followed the Creed and Pater Noster plays into public oblivion.

The demise of the mystery plays was symptomatic of what was to follow in once merry England. Gradually stern, sober Calvinism, drawing much from the wells of the Old Testament, gained the ascendant in the Church of England. Its champion was Oliver Cromwell, leader of the Puritans. Its legacy was the cheerless British Sunday founded more on Old Testament sabbath-day strictures than on the New Testament's Easter joy. Of this, Charles Dickens in the middle of the nineteenth century could still write:

There was the interminable Sunday of his nonage; when his mother, stern of face and unrelenting of heart, would sit all day behind a Bible, bound like her own construction of it, in the hardest, barest, and straightest boards, with one dinted ornament on the cover like the drag of a chain, and a wrathful sprinkling of red upon the edges of the leaves as if it, of all books! were a fortification against sweetness of temper, natural affection, and gentle intercourse. There was the resentful Sunday of a little later, when he sat down glowering and glooming through the tardy length of the day, with a sullen sense of injury in his heart, and no more real knowledge of the beneficent history of the New Testament than if he had been bred among idolaters. There was a legion of Sundays, all days of unserviceable bitterness and mortification, slowly passing before him. (Little Doritt)

But to return to the mystery plays of Catholic York. As we have seen they were grand affairs. They made Christmas, Easter, Corpus Christi and other holy days memorable. Their performance could extend over weeks, and involve sometimes as many as forty wagons, suitably prepared for the various scenes, and drawn from one 'station' to another. The theme of all mystery plays was God's plan of salvation, dramatised, at least in part, from the Garden of Eden to the Last Day. Each stage of the history of salvation portrayed men and women who had obeyed God's will and so cooperated with Him in the redemption of the world Abraham, Noah, Moses, the Prophets, John the Baptist, Mary of Nazareth, up to Jesus and His disciples, His death and resurrection. Thus, for the adult viewers of the mystery plays, entertainment value aside, one message came through loudly and clearly: the importance and blessedness of doing God's will.

In adult life Margaret Middleton may well have remembered only the bright, colorful spectacles of the mystery plays. The nativity scenes, for example but her older, Catholic friends had as their heritage a deep understanding of the plays' underlying spirituality: the saving grace of doing God's will on all occasions. However, in the complexity of the secular and religious climate of the sixteenth century, it was not always easy for anyone to know just what God wanted in the particular difficulties of the times. So Catholics desirous to live lives pleasing to God usually sought out a priest to be their spiritual director and tried to act in all things according to his advice. On her conversion, Margaret, when opportunities availed, followed this rather general practice. And God in his providence sent her excellent spiritual directors who strengthened her in her resolve to do on all occasions what she believed to be the will of God. This 'doing the will of God' led her to heroic sanctity and to martyrdom.

4 Teenage Experience of Turmoil

Margaret Middleton was fifteen when in May 1568, Mary, Queen of Scots, following political and religious upheaval in Scotland John Knox and Calvinism had won the day there fled her realm and sought refuge in Northern England. Queen Elizabeth had Mary promptly placed under close guard while she pondered the possible consequences of her presence in England. Mary, Queen of Scots, was not only Elizabeth's cousin and next in line to the English throne, but also closely linked with France, a country not to be ignored in England's wider international perspective of the time. In addition, Mary was a Catholic and in the eyes of some of the English, especially the Catholics, the lawful queen of England. Elizabeth for them, remained simply the illegitimate daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.

With characteristic astuteness Elizabeth convoked a meeting of both English and Scottish potentates and decided it should be held at York. It is not hard to imagine the stir caused in remote York unaccustomed to the trappings that went with London's royal court when the nobles from both sides of the border with advisers and retainers in train, arrived within its walls.

The duration of the English-Scottish conference that ensued meant boom time at Henry May's very socially acceptable Davygate Inn. One can readily guess at the nature of the views, religious and political, expressed over meals and wine there, particularly when the Duke of Norfolk, judged too partial to Mary's cause, was recalled to London. But the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland remained. They were staunchly Catholic and, in the minds of many Protestants, supporters of the Queen of Scots. It seems, in retrospect, that the York conference achieved little except to enkindle perhaps somewhat more strongly, the existing animosities between adherents of the old and new religions. Yet, while the conference was in session, at least during business hours at her stepfather's inn, a bastion of civic and Protestant respectability, Margaret could not have been immune from the chit-chat, rumors or diatribes that circulated around its tables. How did it all affect her? Perhaps not at all. She was living a comfortable, enjoyable life and seemingly admired her successful and publicly esteemed stepfather.

But exciting, dangerous times were ahead for the north of England; York itself narrowly escaped being caught up in fighting and bloodshed. In 1569 the Duke of Norfolk, a member of Elizabeth's Privy Council and not a Catholic, was accused of political scheming and at once committed to the Tower of London. It was widely rumored that the Duke's plot involved the disaffected Catholic Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland and aimed at freeing Mary, Queen of Scots. Accordingly, Thomas Percy, Earl of Northumberland, and William Neville, the youthful Earl of Westmoreland, were summoned to London. Aware of the Duke of Norfolk's fate, the Earls did not go. Summoned a second time, they raised the flag of rebellion and decided to fight for the old faith. Their intention was to free Mary, Queen of Scots, and, as Sir Thomas Percy put it, 'thereby to have some reformation in religion or at least some sufferance for men to use their conscience as they were disposed'.

The rebels quickly swept south. They halted at Durham Cathedral where High Mass was sung again. Then they marched on through Ripon and Wetherby to Clifford Moor near Tedcaster strategically close to Tutbury. Mary was in prison at Tutbury. But the rebellion was short-lived. Catholics in other parts of England had not joined it. Mary was hastily removed from Tutbury and royal troops soon forced the Northern forces into retreat. Finally Sir Thomas Percy and William Neville had to escape into the relative safety of Scotland; the rising was quelled.

Unlike in 1536, the time of Robert Aske's 'Pilgrimage of Grace', the city of York offered no support to the rebels. Rather, its Lord Lieutenant, the Protestant Earl of Sussex, quite early in the piece took summary measures against it down to the smallest of details. All York's' innkeepers for instance, among them, of course, Henry May were called together and instructed to report promptly to the authorities any scraps of gossip or rumors of sedition that came to their ears. It is not beyond the bounds of reality to believe that Henry May revealed his newly acquired role to the family and perhaps Margaret Middleton found involvement in espionage a trifle thrilling while the rebellion lasted.

The aftermath of the Rebellion of the North was as merciless and cruel as its counterparts of 1536 and 1549. Four of its leaders were publicly executed in York. After imposition of martial law in Yorkshire and neighboring counties, about eight hundred people mainly 'of the meanest sort' were hanged, working men who had dared fight for conscience' sake.Talk of the Government's grisly reprisals in the wake of the Catholic uprising would have done the rounds of the inns of York. Margaret Middleton at Davygate could not have escaped hearing of the fate of those who stood up for the old faith and more than likely she heard Catholicism equated with treachery. But perhaps their treatment stirred pity in the hearts of some, even if little of it issued from their lips.

However, there would have been special rejoicing and feasting at the Davygate Inn York was well known for its social feasts and banquets in 1570 to celebrate Henry May's elevation to the office of a sheriff of York the city had two sheriffs. The office was honorific, of course, but expensive as well. By 1570 Margaret's stepfather not only stood high on York's civic ladder but held a firm position among its wealthy citizens as well.It could be that with a stepfather so prestigious and influential in the city, Margaret automatically accepted his view on the Northern Rebellion.

The suppression of the Northern rebellion was hardly over when startling news reached England. Pope Pius V had excommunicated Queen Elizabeth.

It is doubtful whether Elizabeth was ever a committed Catholic. Her first twenty years of life were spent in a Church that did not recognise the Pope's authority. Always closely associated with her half-brother, Edward, she did not escape the mainly Calvinistic Protestantism that flooded the Church of England during his six year reign. Yet, under her half-sister, Mary, she professed Catholicism and swore to uphold it when Queen. In this regard, however, an Italian diplomat had earlier remarked, with a perspicacity born of experience, that the English people of his time usually assumed the religion of their ruler. Moreover, by the end of Mary's reign Catholicism and Spain had become extremely unpopular in some influential, political quarters, and Elizabeth, it seems, had no great love of either. On the religious side, at the very commencement of her reign, she objected to the elevation of the Sacred Host at Mass, a clear indication of her theological leanings, and of very minor importance yet a clear pointer to Protestant orientation, she saw no place for

processional candles when on a visit to a Benedictine monastery. Subsequently, of course, she had cut herself off from the ancient faith brought to England by St Augustine of Canterbury when she allowed herself to become Supreme Governor of the Church in England.

By his excommunication of Elizabeth, Pope Pius V had sincerely hoped to help the English Catholics but he had seriously misjudged the temper of the times. When Europe was Catholic, papal excommunication of a ruler released all subjects from allegiance and obedience to their head of state. But, as we have already seen, by 1570, the majority of the English people had accepted Elizabeth's state church. Furthermore, in nearby Scotland, John Knox with his Calvinistic and political disciples, was securely in control. So, Pope Pius V, despite his good intentions, made the plight of English Catholics even worse.

Traditionally the English people had a marked dislike for foreigners, Spanish in particular; in Protestant eyes at the time of Elizabeth's excommunication, the Italian Pope and Catholic Spain were the enemy and anathema.

One result of Pius V's excommunication was to make potential traitors of all English Catholics who, in the main, wanted only freedom from a church imposed on them by acts of parliament, fines, prison and the sword; another result was the Government's draconian reaction to the Queen's excommunication. In retaliation Parliament immediately passed laws striking at the heart itself of Catholicism. From 1570 on it was high treason in England to call the Queen a heretic; it was high treason, too,to bring into the country any edict from the Pope, to absolve or reconcile any person with the Catholic Church; it was equally high treason for any person to be so absolved and reconciled with the Catholic Church. As a deterrent against high treason, the punishment already decreed was an horrific death by being hanged, drawn and quartered.

To clinch its anti-Catholic legislation, Elizabeth's parliament put a new crime on its statute books: the crime of harboring a Catholic priest, which carried the death penalty. Perhaps, on completion of this meticulous code of penal law, Parliament felt comfortable about the ensuing death of the old religion in England. On the contrary, it gave birth to a small but vital underground Catholic Church, and made way for the advent of the heroic seminary and Jesuit priests who kept the light of the old faith burning brightly in the darkest of times. In

consequence, it spawned a new breed of spies and pursuivants the

priest-hunters of England.

5 A Happy Marriage

Towards midsummer 1571 Margaret Middleton married John Clitherow. Theirs must have been a grand wedding in St Martin's, Coney St, that July. Henry May, stepfather of the bride, as one of York's two sheriffs would have been preceded into the church by two sergeants-at-mace, a touch of civic dignity to embellish the marriage ceremonial. Margaret and John's congregation, gathered together at least three of the city's most wealthy families: the Middletons, the Turners and the Clitherows; the banquet that followed would have been sumptuous, fittingly gracing such an occasion.

On their wedding day Margaret was eighteen and John much older. He had been a widower with two sons, William aged eight and Thomas somewhat younger.

In Elizabethan times most marriages were arranged so it is open to surmise where Henry May and John Clitherow first met: Henry was a newcomer to York and as such did not belong to any of its old families. On his side, John Clitherow was an easy-going man, socially inclined and one who enjoyed his cup of wine; it could be then, that their meeting place was the Davygate Inn itself. On the other hand, Henry May, proprietor of a popular inn, needed large supplies of first grade meat to satisfy his fastidious patrons, and could well have been a customer in the Shambles where John Clitherow was a master butcher. However, notwithstanding any circumstance of meeting or agreement on the part of these two men, John Clitherow really loved Margaret and proved a generous, indulgent husband to her.

Despite their trades environment, John and Margaret Clitherow were very much caught up in York's social activities. Feasting and banqueting, reserved for the rich necessarily, were popular diversions. Some of these were public, held in the Common Hall or one of the guild halls; others were private in prosperous citizens' homes. John Clitherow surely held some such entertainments in his own large house for as Father Mush tells us he liked to display his 'young and comely' wife.

Margaret Clitherow's new parish church was Holy Trinity, commonly called Christ Church. It was in King's Court near the Shambles. Because he was considered one of Christ Church's 'discreet and honest' parishioners John Clitherow in 1572 was invited to co-operate with parish officials in implementing recent orders issued by the Queen's Council for the North then under the presidency of Lord Henry Hastings, a staunch Puritan.

These orders directed the Council's faithful servants to report without fear or favour all known or suspected Papists (a term of contempt for Catholics), all who refused to go to Church (recusants) and above all those who were 'fugitives and fled out of the realm for religion' and 'such as do lurk or be kept secret in any house'.

What part John Clitherow played in this witch-hunt we do not know. But at the time there were two highly respected recusants in his parish: Doctor Thomas Vavasour and his wife, Dorothy. Thomas Vavasour had graduated from John Fisher College, Cambridge, named after its founder who later when Bishop of Rochester, refused to accept Henry VIII as head of the Catholic Church, and suffered death for his refusal. Amid the ascendancy of Protestantism in Edward's reign, Thomas went into exile in Venice and studied medicine. When Mary 1 returned England to the old religion, he returned and practised as a doctor in York. As could be expected, he would have nothing of Elizabeth's restored state church and so learnedly defended the old faith against it that it was reported 'he would turn the whole city if he were suffered to speak'. In fact, by 1570, correspondents were reporting to Master Secretary Cecil in London that they had been pursuing Thomas Vavasour over the past two years but he had not been seen in Yorkshire since the Northern Rebellion though 'chaplains' were reported to be still saying Mass in his house. Inhabitants of York and Yorkshire proved loyal to their esteemed and much loved doctor in his time of danger. Thomas Vavasour was not brought within the clutches of the law for a long time. It was different, nevertheless, with his wife, Dorothy, as we shall see.

Margaret Clitherow had not been in the Shambles a year when on 4 June, 1572, Stephen Branton, a blacksmith, had to appear before York's High Commission for Ecclesiastical Affairs charged with expressed refusal to receive communion in the Church of England and to attend divine service. Before his judges, Stephen remained unrepentant of these crimes and was forthwith committed to prison, the Kidcote, on Ouse Bridge. It so happened that this prison was under the charge of Sheriff Edward Turner, Margaret's first cousin on her mother's side. Ironically, the Turners and the Brantons had been friends and neighbors over many years. John Branton, Stephen's father, had witnessed Richard Turner's will in 1531;Richard Turner was Margaret's maternal grandfather. For almost twenty years, until his death in 1591, Stephen Branton remained a prisoner in the Kidcote. Perhaps Margaret always thought of Stephen in the Kidcote when she crossed the bridge over the River Ouse in her trips around York.

Margaret, if she had so chosen, could have lived a life of ease and pleasant diversion in the Shambles. John had a large, trained staff there including apprentice butchers, cooks and domestic employees. Besides, John Clitherow doted on his young and, as Father Mush, Margaret's first biographer, informs us, pretty wife. But Margaret had more than good looks. Ably schooled, no doubt, in the running of Henry May's inn, she was energetic and capable of managing her husband's retail butcher's shop. John Clitherow had grazing lands and a mansion on one of them in and around York. He was often away from the Shambles seeing to his herds of cattle and sheep, his wife meanwhile in charge of all business in their home. On these occasions we are told he committed all to Margaret's 'trust and discretion'.

But, above all, Margaret Clitherow in her late teens was remarkably adaptable to a notably new way of life. What an extraordinary exchange she had made: a high class inn in socially desirable Davygate for the sawdust and blood of a butcher's shop in a part of York where cognate trades were plied, fishmongering and tanning, for example. It is reliably reported that whenever the Lord President of the Queen's Council for the North had to pass through sections of that area, air sweeteners were employed to protect his lordship's nostrils from local unwholesome odours. Henry May himself had frankincense burnt in front of him for the same purpose when on visits to that neighborhood.

6 An Execution in the Shambles

About two months after Stephen Branton's imprisonment, Sir Thomas Percy, seventh earl of Northumberland, was publicly beheaded on the pavement usually a market place for butter, cheese, eggs and poultry about a hundred yards down from the Clitherow home in the Shambles. Authorities in Scotland had handed Sir Thomas over to the English for a sum of two thousand pounds and the Government, no doubt, to make an example of this outstanding Catholic rebel decided that his execution should be a public one in York. But her majesty's government was mercifully inclined: the Earl of Northumberland had been offered his life on condition he renounced Catholicism. After all, the apostasy of the head of an ancient Catholic family in the north of England would have been more advantageous to the central government in London than the execution of a rebellious, Papist leader. But Sir Thomas Percy had stood firm in the old faith.

On the afternoon of the execution, 22 August 1572, an immense crowd thronged around the scaffold on the Pavement and spilled back into the adjoining streets. The Elizabethans were strong of stomach and relished the high drama of a public execution. Had Margaret Clitherow gone along with her neighbors to be a spectator? It is not known; but from her home butcher's shop, she could not have been oblivious of what was to happen on the Pavement.

Before the hushed, largely sympathetic crowd Sir Thomas approached his end with quiet dignity and remarkable courage. In his parting words to the numerous, silent on-lookers he attributed his peace and composure at the hour of death to 'that Church which throughout the whole Christian world, is knit and bound together'. In this same faith, he told them, 'I am about to end this unhappy life. But as for this new English church I do not acknowledge it'. A Protestant minister interrupted the Earl at this point his name was Palmer and said to him: 'You are dying an obstinate Papist; a member not of the Catholic, but of the Roman Church'. Sir Thomas's reply was a great act of faith in the lately proscribed Catholic Church that must have kindled warm assent in the minds and hearts of many in that awe-struck, admiring crowd. He calmly informed Palmer: 'That which you call the Roman Church, is the Catholic Church, which has been founded on the teaching of the Apostles, Jesus Christ

being its corner-stone, strengthened by the blood of Martyrs, honored by the recognition of the Holy Fathers; and it continues always the same, being the Church against which, as Christ our Saviour said, the gates of Hell shall not prevail'. Then Sir Thomas traced a simple sign of the cross on the ladder of the scaffold, kissed it (marks of odious popery to bystanding Puritans) and serenely went to death declaring that if he had a thousand lives he would give them all for the Catholic faith. The crowd's reaction was to jostle for relics from the body of York's newest martyr.

Edward Turner, along with a sheriff from Yorkshire, was one of the official witnesses of Sir Thomas Percy's execution. After completion of his civic duty, Edward could have called in at Margaret's house in the Shambles and talked about the day's event with his cousin. Margaret at the time was expecting the birth of her first child, Henry, and may not have gone out of doors that afternoon. If she did not see Sir Thomas's glorious, ultimate witness to the old religion, there is no doubt she heard about it.

When Stephen Branton was committed to 'ward' in the Sheriffs' Kidcote on Ouse Bridge, Father Henry Comberford was already a prisoner there. Father Comberford had degrees from Cambridge University Master of Arts and Bachelor of Divinity and as a young intellectual had opposed Henry VIII's usurpation of ecclesiastical power in 1534. Under Queen Mary I he was parish priest at Norbury, County Derbyshire, as well as Precentor of Lichfield Cathedral. Father Comberford had at least two like minded friends, Father Alban Langdale, Chancellor of Lichfield Diocese, and Thomas Watson, Bishop of Lincoln. In 1559 all three refused to acknowledge Elizabeth as supreme Governor of the Church in England and totally rejected her act of uniformity. They were promptly deprived of their offices. That same year, Archbishop Heath, after witnessing the events of Edward VI's reign, warned the Government:

By the relinquishing and forsaking of the See of Rome, we must forsake and flee... the unity of the Christian Church, and by leaping out of St Peter's ship, hazard ourselves to be overwhelmed and drowned in the waters of schism, sects and divisions.

For this warning Archbishop Heath lost his See but his prediction of the emergence of 'schisms, sects and divisions', in religion in England was fulfilled in Elizabeth's reign itself. As we have seen Martin Luther's dictum that the Bible alone, privately (that is, individually) interpreted, was the sole source of Christian faith and morals, led to various and contradictory interpretations. In Luther's theological vision there was no room nor necessity for a teaching Church and, if possible, less for a pope. Yet, the New Testament, even if privately interpreted, provides adequate grounds for the existence of both. It can be fairly asked, too, by what divine revelation did Luther reach this infallible conclusion, accepted by all Protestants, after fifteen hundred years of tradition. Luther had gloried in being the plague of the Pope in life and predicted that his death would be the death of the Pope.

'I was your plague while I lived; when I die I shall be your death, O Pope'. This inscription was found on Luther's bedroom wall after his death in 1546. The Pope, however, is still alive and well in this year of Our Lord 2001.

Rejection of Elizabeth's church with its Lutheran Calvinistic doctrines brought Father Comberford sixteen years 'imprisonment', six of which were spent in York before his transfer to Hull. In the Kidcote he was able 'to exercise a modest apostolate, sending out his servant with messages and papers and receiving visitors'. One such visitor could possibly have been William Clitherow, brother of Margaret's husband and secretary to Father Alban Langdale, Henry Comberford's old friend, who was under house arrest in Sussex. If William Clitherow did visit York. He began studies for the priesthood at Rheims in France in 1580. Did he meet Margaret? We can only conjecture. What is certain, though, is that William Tesimond connected with John Clitherow by marriage was imprisoned a second time in the Kidcote in November 1572 for failure to attend Church of England services. Maybe Margaret Clitherow, described by Father Mush as a most compassionate person, visited William and Stephen Branton as well, and through them met Father Henry Comberford, their revered fellow prisoner.

Marriage with John Clitherow freed Margaret from the dominating presence of Henry May his political and religious views included and allowed her to live very much her own kind of life. Moreover, during her business day and on social occasions she would have met many of the women of Christ Church parish. Jane Geldard, for example, also a butcher's wife, could have been one of her new friends in the Shambles. Then, of course, there was Dorothy Vavasour, the doctor's wife, of necessity bringing up her children alone her fugitive husband wanted by the Government for recusancy.

Of significance perhaps, Jane and Dorothy were among the first women in York to appear before the High Commission charged with refusal to go to the Church of England on Sundays and holy days. They were also among the first women in York to go to prison for their recusancy. Thus, increasingly it became impossible for Margaret to live in the Shambles and not be affected by what she heard and saw around her concerning the old faith and the men and women of all classes who remained loyal to it at such tremendous costs.

7 A Very Dangerous Decision

One of Margaret Clitherow's neighbors was Robert Tesimond, brother of William, who, as we have already learned, was imprisoned for recusancy in 1572. At his trial he had informed the Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Affairs that he did not like their service of the Lord's Supper 'for that sacrifice is not offered in the same for the sins of the quick and the dead'. Arraigned again in 1573 his plea before the same Commissioners was that he was 'not satisfied in conscience to communicate' and that he believed the Church of Rome 'was and still is' Christ's Church. As a consequence he went to prison in Hull. Previously, William had been deprived in prison of a treasured possession a few strands of hair snipped from the beard of the severed head of Sir Thomas Percy to his persecutors, a popish relic. Besides, he had endured humiliation and biting cold in York's city stocks for his steadfastness in the old faith. Such heroic witness by a neighbour's relative must surely have claimed Margaret's attention and supplied much for her consideration. Moreover, she well knew that Anne Weddell, a cousin of her own husband, John, by marriage, and Anne Cooke, daughter of the ever-faithful Catholic, Stephen Branton, were staunch recusants in her own parish of Christ Church.

'With so many witnesses in a great crowd on every side', as the Epistle to the Hebrews puts it, towards the end of 1573 or early in 1574, Margaret Clitherow made some dangerous moves: she sought and obtained absolution from heresy and reconciliation with the Catholic Church. Since Father Mush, who wrote Margaret's life-story scarcely three months after her death in 1586, because of the circumstances of the penal times, could name no names, we do not know who instructed her in the old faith and what priest received her back into the Church. But Margaret and the priest concerned would have been fully aware of the frightening risks undertaken: death by being hanged, drawn and quartered for the priest, and for Margaret, as a woman, being burnt alive.

The scene of Margaret's return to the fold of Catholicism may have been set in the Kidcote prison itself where zealous Father Henry Comberford remained prisoner until 1576. Father Comberford, being a Marian priest, would have had faculties for such absolutions and reconciliations. On the other hand, there was the home of Dorothy Vavasour in Margaret's own parish. This fearless woman's house was a 'refuge for all afflicted Catholics, of what state, degree or calling so ever, resorting thither. There God's priests, wandering in uncertain places for fear of imminent danger had harbour and the best entertainment she could make them'. It could well have been a fugitive priest, sheltering under Mrs Vavasours' welcome roof who became Margaret's spiritual father in Christ. A quarter of the English parish clergy, it may be remembered, did not accept Elizabeth's Protestantism and became outlaws through exercise of their priesthood.

At the time of her conversion Margaret would have been around twenty-one years old, about three years married and the mother of her first child, Henry. From the custom of the times, Henry Clitherow was, no doubt, named after his godfather, Henry May. His baptism, then, would have taken place in the Church of England. From this, it seems that Margaret's conversion to her former Catholicism was relatively sudden. Yet, as Father Mush tells us, a time came when, not without opposition from her worldly friends, she 'carefully employed herself to learn her Christian duty in truth and sincerity'. Margaret herself tells us she discovered that she had been brought up 'in an erroneous faith'.

It is of relevance to recall here that in 1571 the Church of England had officially re-issued its Thirty-Nine Articles, reduced from the Forty-Three Articles of Edward VI's reign. This second promulgation of the Articles followed the Government's increased opposition to the practice of Catholicism in the wake of the Earls' Rebellion and Elizabeth's excommunication. Although the Thirty-Nine Articles did not contain all the doctrine of the Church of England, they made certain pivotal parts of it crystal clear. Just a few quotes from the Articles are sufficient to show what Margaret Clitherow rejected as 'erroneous beliefs':

'Holy Scripture alone containeth all things necessary to salvation.' 'The King's Majesty hath the chief power in this realm of England. . . unto whom the chief government of all estates, whether they be Ecclesiastical or Civil, in all causes dotb appertain.... The Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this realm of England.' 'There are two Sacraments ordained of Christ in the Gospel, that is to say, Baptism and the Supper of the Lord.' 'The Body of Christ is taken, and eaten, in the Supper, only after an heavenly and spiritual manner. All the mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is Faith.' 'The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up or worshipped.' 'Wherefore the sacrifices of Masses in the which it was commonly said that the priest did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain or guilt, were blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits' .

At this point in all fairness it must be emphasised that the Catholic Church Margaret re-entered had been chastened and greatly purified since Martin Luther first raised dissent. No one would deny that abuses had existed within it at the commencement of his protest campaign; that there were unworthy, worldly members of the hierarchy and clergy; that numerous monks and nuns had abandoned the high ideals of their religious profession; that the laity generally were ignorant and prone towards superstition; that simony was abroad and that the Church's official teaching on indulgences had been perverted.

Nor can it be gain said that Luther's progress in protestation and the dialectic it engendered finally brought about his denial of essential Catholic teaching; that his religious doctrine was accepted by some Germans, especially their princes, mainly for national or political

considerations.

Underpinning Luther's Reform were three principles: Scripture alone, grace alone, faith alone. As the Reformation gained momentum the concept of Scripture's being the sole source of Christian faith and morals, became a stumbling-block to unity. Protestants could not agree among themselves on authentic interpretations of the same Scripture. The results were the evolution of splinter groups with dissenting beliefs. We have already seen, for instance, disagreement among Luther, Zwingli and Calvin, the founding father of the Protestant revolt, on the correct interpretation of New Testament passages in regard to the Blessed Eucharist.

The Catholic response to this Protestant doctrine was slow in getting off the ground. In those days of slow communication the authorities at Rome did not at first fully understand the nature nor the depth of the Lutheran movement in Germany. Besides, international and political reasons had their part to play in the hindrance of any immediate, large scale reaction by Rome to incipient Protestantism.

But by 13 December, 1545 one year before the death of Luther and two before Henry VIII's, Pope Pius III managed to assemble the Nineteenth Ecumenical Council of the Church at the city of Trent in Northern Italy.

The Council's objectives were threefold: to clarify and re-state what was Catholic doctrine and to distinguish it from theological opinions; to correct by disciplinary legislation prevailing abuses inside the Church; and, by the setting up of suitable seminaries and colleges, to provide a well-educated and religiously disciplined clergy.

Though interrupted by international situations, the Council of Trent managed to hold three fruitfully productive sessions before its close in December 1563. A Profession of Faith based on the decrees of the Council of Trent was issued by Pope Pius IV in the December of 1564. For the purpose of understanding in the deepest clarity, the motivation behind Margaret Clitherow's extraordinary life as a re-converted Catholic, it is necessary to give quotes from this Profession of Faith and to consider them in contrast to the above quotations from the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England.

8 Growth in Grace

The decrees of the Council of Trent in conjunction with its disciplinary statutes the Catholic Reformation breathed fresh life into a grievously wounded and sorely afflicted Church. In 1523 the Pope's legate had felt himself obliged to acknowledge in the presence of German Princes assembled at Nuremberg that God had allowed the chastisement of the Lutheran apostasy to fall upon His Church, 'because of the sins of men and especially because of the sins of priests and prelates'.

But by 1573-74 ten years after the close of the Council of Trent the time of Margaret Clitherow's conversion, the Catholic rehabilitation was well under way. By then there had been within the Church a great sprinkling with clean water. In addition, especially in England, the sharp wind of persecution already fifty three people testified with their lives to the old faith had winnowed the chaff from the wheat on the threshing floor of the Catholic Church. This powerfully prevailing wind had taken away with it conventional, time serving Catholics, indifferent in faith and lax in morals, and left behind excellent wheat a very small remnant of men and women strong in faith and of solid virtue. In God's providence, the Council of Trent through its clarification of Catholic doctrine and its directions regarding the training of suitable priests, was basically instrumental in stippling worthy shepherds for Christ's little flock endangered in England.

Early in Elizabeth's reign, William Allen resigned his post as principal of St Mary's Hall, Oxford, and went into exile at Louvain, Belgium. There he joined a group of self-exiled, English, Catholic scholars and was ordained a priest in 1565. Two years later he established a college for the training of priests destined for the English mission in the new University of Douai. 'Here', according to Philip Hughes, a much later English historian, 'under God, was the principal means of preserving the Catholic faith in England'. Nevertheless, the English College set up in Rome in 1576, too, made its magnificent contribution to maintaining Catholicism in England. Besides, Englishmen, young and not so young, sought out universities on the Continent, Valladolid, Rheims, St Omers,

for example, for study and ordination in preparation for a perilous care of souls in their home country. Of enormous help to the Church in England also was the decision of the newly founded Society of Jesus, the Jesuits, to send a mission there in 1580.

It says much for the seminary priests that, in the main, after 1574 Margaret Clitherow's spiritual direction came from them, and that her modern biographer, Katharine Longley, can write, 'The crown of Margaret's spiritual life was her encounter with God by participation in the holy sacrifice of the Mass'. It remains an ever engrossing question to ask what it was, besides sterling example from friends and neighbors, that turned Margaret Clitherow from the celebration of the Supper of the Lord in the beautiful English of the Book of Common Prayer to Mass in the Latin of Pope St Pius V's Roman Missal. Doubtless, it was because her directors could bring her readily to a deep appreciation of the sublimity of the Mass, the nature of which the Council of Trent had clearly and manifestly treated of in its twenty-second session in 1562. About her conversion Margaret herself is reported to have said that she gave critical attention to 'the Ministers of the new gospel' and found 'no substance, no truth nor Christian comfort' in their teaching. Of special significance is the assertion that Margaret found 'no Christian comfort' in the preaching of the new ministers of the Gospel. Had the sermons, always long, at her parish church become too Calvinist in theology and delivery, though Calvinism itself was firmly entrenched in the Thirty Nine articles of the Church of England? Did Margaret ever worry where she stood in the Lord's predestination: among the elect, to be at His right hand on the Last Day; or with those on His left, already doomed to eternal punishment? Was she ever satisfied that she was justified by faith in God's saving grace after sin? Did emphasis on the frightful wrath of God directed against sinners upset and disturb her? But, again, it could have been negative preaching at Christ Church attacks on Catholic beliefs instead of sustenance for faith, hope and love that made Margaret critical of her clergy. Could it have been the condemnation itself of the Mass as blasphemous fable and dangerous deceit the Mass was a favourite target for Protestant outrage and ridicule that set Margaret's mind towards consideration of it at a time when some of her neighbors were suffering for its preservation?

After conversion, at least, Margaret came to know Mrs Vavasour very well. Together they planned a little ruse by which Margaret could visit the Vavasour house the abode of a well-known recusant without raising the suspicion of any of the neighbors. Dorothy Vavasour was one of York's best midwives; her husband, we recall, was a doctor. She kept, as Katharine Longley puts it, a Catholic maternity home 'where women the times of bearing and bringing forth their children approaching, had good and safe being, both for the time of their delivery, the christening of their children, and the recovery of their health'. In the ordinary course of her duties Dorothy had often sent messages to neighboring women to come and help with the birth of a child. Such going-and-coming was normal routine at the Vavasour maternity hospital. Yet, it sometimes artfully concealed messages and arrivals for a far different purpose: a priest, 'a good man', had arrived at the Vavasours' and was available for Mass and the Sacraments. Thus, when Margaret Clitherow was seen hurrying to assist a woman in labour, it was thought, she was in reality on her way to meet and receive the spiritual ministrations of a hunted priest, most frequently, it appears, a seminary priest.

But this was not the only subterfuge Margaret resorted to in order to have access to a priest. Father Mush outlines for us a much more involved and ingenious scheme she conjured up in her quest for prayer and spiritual direction:

When she was invited with her neighbors to some marriage or banquet in the country, she would devise twenty means to serve God that day more than any other at home; for she would take horse with the rest, and after that she had ridden a mile out of the city, one should be there ready provided to go in her stead, and all that day she would remain in some place nigh hand, where she might quietly serve God, and learn of her ghostly Father some part of her Christian duty as her heart most desired, and at night return home again with the rest as though she had been a-feasting all the day long.

It has been explained how Margaret worked this stratagem. By 1572, Shakespeare's 'sun expelling mask' had come into fashion; Margaret and her ally must have been remarkably alike in appearance each wore the same kind of dress and silken face mask. One can only marvel at the complications that could have arisen in the course of a banquet.

On her entrance into the Church Margaret experienced a complete change of heart. What previously had been advantages for her in a life of frequent merry-making and, as she terms it, forgetfulness of God, became disadvantages to be cast aside or remedied. In her case, the Word of God had fallen into the rich soil of a noble and generous heart and yielded a bountiful harvest through her perseverance. By such purity of heart, in the words of the Epistle to the Hebrews, Margaret had turned 'away from dead actions and towards faith in God'.

9 A Prisoner of Christ

Pope Pius IV 1559-1565, who confirmed the final decrees of the Council of Trent, made it quite clear that Catholics true to their faith could not with good conscience attend services in the Church of England. It may be, then, that John Clitherow first discovered that his wife had become a Catholic when she decided not to attend divine service with him. John, it appears was not deeply committed to the Church of England. His main concern on learning about Margaret's conversion was for the dire, practical effects of her recusancy. Later, John would say that the only complaint he had about his wife was that she would not go to church with him. Though, Margaret's Catholicism must have placed John in a somewhat embarrassing situation officially, because he was just then one of the city of York's eight chamberlains.

News of Margaret's changed way of life would have caused surprise, dismay, alarm even at the Davygate Inn a leading Protestant citizen like Henry May with a stepdaughter a papist! There is no record of how Jane Middleton-May took the tidings of her daughter's most unexpected behavior. George Middleton, maybe, registered his disapproval by failing to name any of his daughters born during Margaret's remaining lifetime after his recusant sister. There could have been little enthusiasm for Margaret's departure from the Church of England among her other relations either. Thomas Jackson, an attorney and cousin by marriage, was one of York's sheriffs and later would be a member of 'the twenty-four' nominated by Queen and Privy Council to hunt down 'massing on popish priests'. Her cousin, Edward Turner, was destined also to join the ranks

of these 'notabilities'. There is no evidence that Margaret received any sympathy, let alone support, from her family, relatives or former friends at Davygate. On the contrary, we know that from then on she 'passed not in any company without her crosses'.

As could be expected Mrs Vavasours' was the first woman's name to appear on any list of recusants in York. Margaret's name did come up until 23 November 1576. Alarmed by the advent of the seminary priests, the Government stepped up its surveillance on defaulters from church services. Earlier that year the Lord President of the Council for the North had instructed the Corporation of York to be more diligent in its pursuit of recusants and to make sure that church wardens made detailed checks on church attendance. The Council, of course, was the arm of the anti-Catholic authorities in London; the Corporation, on the other hand, was the more kindly disposed instrument of government for the city itself. At York as yet there was no easily detected general polarisation between Protestant and Catholic. However, Margaret did not appear before the Commission that year because the Corporation explained to the Council that she 'cometh not to the church, for what cause we cannot learn, for she is now great with child'. Margaret, it seems, had friends or, at least, sympathisers in the Corporation of York.

But on 2 August, 1577 Margaret and John Clitherow had to face the Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Affairs. Among them was Archbishop Edwin Sandys. He previously named Father Comberford as the driving force behind Catholic opposition in York after the Earls' rebellion. Dean Hutton, who, as we have seen, effectively put an end to York's mystery plays, was there; also was William Palmer, Chancellor of York Minister. It was the same Palmer who had reprimanded Sir Thomas Percy on the scaffold for proclaiming that his death was for the Catholic Church instead of the Roman Church. The verdict of the Commission on this occasion was that both John and Margaret must go to prison. John, although he promised to advise his wife to attend divine service, had refused to pay any fines; Margaret rejected conformity to the Church of England. John, with husbands in the same situation as himself, was consigned to the Kidcote but released after three days, following intervention by Archbishop Sandys and negotiation set in train for the payment of fines. Margaret and the other recusant wives were jailed in York Castle, a place of more secure restraint, reserved for 'dangerous' cases of recusancy in which there was fear of influence on others. They remained in prison for close on six months.

Margaret's release from York Castle on 6 February 1578 was conditional: she was to return to the Castle on 8 April that year and meanwhile to sever all connections with similar, disobedient persons. When the appointed time came round, Margaret was again allowed leave prison provided she remained at home except to go to divine service on Sundays and holy days, and that John should pay a fine of two shillings for each time she failed duly to appear at Christ Church between then and the next twenty-sixth day of June. By means of subsequent bonds and John's generous payment of fines thirty shillings on at least two occasions Margaret managed to keep out of custody until 3 October 1580. Her appearance this day before the Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Affairs was brief. There was scarcely any scope for argumentation or legal debate. The statutes were clear. She simply declined to take any oath or to accept Elizabeth's Act of Uniformity. The result was imprisonment again in York Castle and there she remained until freed for the purposes of childbirth on 24 April 1581. Early in March 1583 Margaret appeared before a Judge and Jury on a third recusancy charge. Found guilty, she was returned to the Castle until liberated under house arrest in mid 1584. So far her penalties had been comparatively light because she had avoided arrest while assisting at Mass.

10 The Blessed Society of the Castle

As we have seen, Margaret Clitherow had three rather lengthy terms in prison. York Castle, her place of confinement, was not the healthiest of places. The River Foss on its way to join the Ouse formed a moat around it on one side. Unpleasant smells from this sluggish-flowing moat were not unusual around the Castle. However, in spite of the Castle's exterior, at times, noisome environment, Margaret found its religious atmosphere within, most congenial. All Catholic prisoners from every walk of life were housed in the same Castle wing. In it women were separated from men, and amongst the men, priests, schoolmasters and 'gentlemen' were segregated from artisans and laborers. But, the prison life of the sixteenth century is a far cry from prison conditions today. All prisoners had to pay for their board and lodging, even fees for their

fetters, and gaolers were notoriously avid for bribes. Moreover, some prisoners could have personal servants and others, their children.

During her imprisonments Margaret experienced the truth of what St Paul had written in his letter to the first Christians at Rome: 'How rich are the depths of God ! How deep His wisdom and knowledge and how impossible to penetrate His motives or understand His methods!

The Government, intent on punishing her for adherence to Catholicism, had unwittingly enabled Margaret to lead a fuller Catholic life than she could ever have hoped to lead at liberty in the Shambles. Lax discipline in the Castle provided opportunities to attend Mass and go to Confession, albeit, sometimes through a crack in a cell wall; at other times, a hole in the floor. Besides access to the Sacraments, she had, in addition, the companionship of committed, traditionally Catholic women in her first imprisonment Margaret's religious education could have been neither broad nor deep from whom she learnt the devotions and practices of the old religion. In their company she absorbed the spirit of Catholicism like a child in a Catholic home. Dedicated Catholics in the Castle at the time were known to fast, as though imprisonment for the faith were not penance enough for them.

When housewife and manageress of a busy butcher's shop in the Shambles, Margaret had little time for reading. At the Castle things were quite otherwise. She could settle down in her 'little' room with a book and look forward to discussing later on what she was reading. Though officially separated, Catholic prisoners managed to meet for prayer in common, instruction and discussion. In fact, they formed a special cross-section of Catholic life in York and came to be known as 'that blessed society in the Castle' united over all considerations of class by their love of Christ and zeal for His Church.

Father Mush names three of the spiritual books Margaret read during her prison terms: 'Imitation of Christ' by Thomas a Kempis; 'Spiritual Exercises' by William Perin, based on the 'Spiritual Exercises' of St Ignatius Loyola; and the Rheims/Douai 'New Testament' translated and with notes by Dr Gregory Martin. Thomas a Kempis's 'Imitation of Christ', written in the fifteenth century, formed part of the literature of that century expressive of what was known as the 'Devotio Moderna'. The 'Devotio Moderna' (Modern Devotion) fostered a deep, personal devotion to Christ, Our Lord, cultivated by meditative and prayerful reading of mainly the New Testament in solitude. In part, it was a reaction against formal, routine-like participation in liturgical prayer devoid of ardent personal, religious sentiments. In practice, the 'Imitation of Christ' guided ordinary Catholics into what was always intended by the 'Lectio Divina' (Divine Reading) of monastic spirituality, prayer of the heart. From what we know of Margaret Clitherow's spiritual life, the reading of Book Four of the 'Imitation of Christ' must have been balm of Gilead to her soul. Book Four reveals the mystical outpouring of Thomas a Kempis's heart in love and reverent wonder in his contemplation of the Mass, Holy Communion and the office of priesthood.

Katharine Longley succinctly writes that Margaret returned home after her first imprisonment in 1578 with 'an increased appreciation of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass'. And of that there is little wonder when we read and consider what she herself had read and pondered over alone in her little room at the Castle:

For if this most Holy Sacrament were celebrated in one place only, and consecrated by only one priest in the world, with how great a desire, thinkest thou, would men be affected towards that place, and to such a priest of God, that they might see the divine Mysteries celebrated?

But now that there are many priests, and Christ is offered up in many places, that the grace and love of God to man may appear so much the more bounteously is this sacred Communion distributed throughout the entire world.

Thanks be to Thee, O good Jesus, eternal Shepherd, Who hast vouchsafed to feed us poor exiles with Thy precious Body and Blood, and to invite us to the receiving of these Mysteries, even by an address from Thine own mouth, saying: Come to Me, all you that labour and are burdened, and I will refresh you.

11 Spiritual Detachment

After participation in the Mass with 'that blessed society in the Castle' Mass was often celebrated there in the darkness of the early hours of the morning and the illumination of Thomas a Kempis's exalted teaching on that Holy Sacrifice, we are not surprised to learn that in June 1578, as soon as she was freed from prison, Margaret 'straightaway provided a place and all things convenient, that God might be served (i.e. Mass said) in her house'. In the Mass Margaret had found a precious pearl to be purchased at any price imprisonment, even death itself.

We do not know at what stage of Margaret's growth in imitation of Christ she could pray that prayer with a full heart; what we do know is by the day of her martyrdom she had acquired the detachment for which Thomas a Kempis prayed.

During her third and longest internment in the Castle Margaret had the advantage of having in her possession a copy of Dr Murray's English translation of the New Testament. Through the pages of the Gospel Jesus Himself became her teacher. She learned from Him the compassion, wisdom, suffering and glory of a life lived in willing obedience to the Father. In God's providence, too, this time in prison Margaret met Brian Stapleton, a well educated Catholic 'gentleman'. According to the rules, we remember, prisoners were segregated. Later, Brian escaped from the Castle and, Margaret herself free again, hid him in her house, employed as tutor to her children. She had 'prayed God that her children might have virtuous and Catholic education, which only she wished to be their portions'. Thus, Margaret's whole prison life resulted in her advantage; proof, indeed, of the truth that St Paul had expressed in his letter to the Romans: 'by turning everything to their good, God co-operates with all those who love Him'.

12 A Very Secret Place

Prison life afforded Margaret a means of spiritual retreat a place of quiet for reading, prayer and instruction. On conversion, she had put behind her the banqueting and feasting of former days a materialistic way of life as so much chasing the wind. Moreover, the women imprisoned with her on the first occasion were all people of deep religious conviction with a practical love for Christ and His Church in England: Anne Weddell, a cousin by marriage; Anne Cook, daughter of the family friend, Stephen Branton, himself already a permanent prisoner for Christ; Janet Geldard, who had previously converted her husband and was considered by Government authorities 'a bad influence' on other prisoners; Isabel Porter and Margaret Tailor, both tried and true recusants. Associates like these and the exemplary lives of other Catholics confined in the Castle prompted Margaret on her discharge to remark: 'I fear God saw something in me for which I was unworthy to continue among them; but God's blessed will be done'. With hindsight, we see very clearly, that 'God's blessed will' for Margaret outside prison walls, had been that she should continue her daily round of prayer and suffering combined with a difficult and dangerous apostolate to further His Kingdom among those around her.

If, as we already know, John Clitherow in the early years of their marriage delighted in displaying his young, attractive wife at banquets, what disappointment, frustration even, he must have experienced when she could not in conscience accompany him to their local parish church. That they truly loved each other is certain; but that caused the division which Margaret's Catholicism put between them, much more painful and harder to bear. Tension and unpleasantness in the Clitherow home at times must have been at explosion point. Margaret's recusancy had already put John in prison for a short while; it had him frequently in court~answering summonses, paying fines, taking out bonds; but, worst of all, Margaret's prison terms upset the running of John's business and care for his children. None of his inconvenience and especially his humiliation at having a recusant wife was easy for Margaret to bear either. Even Father Mush, Margaret's last spiritual director, admits to arguments between her and John. Yet throughout all the domestic turmoil and religious alienation, Margaret remained amiable but strong. She was convinced her first duty was to God and He alone was her support. At the date of Margaret's first imprisonment, their son, Henry, would have been about six, their daughter, Anne, around four. William Clitherow, John's son from his first marriage, though about seventeen, was already apprenticed to a draper and could not substitute for Margaret at their butcher's shop in the Shambles.

Ironically, the Clitherow home was the property of the Dean and chapter of York Minster John had, we recall, a large house on one of his country estates. Providentially, no doubt, relatives of John, between the years 1575~1576, moved into the houses on each side of him in the Shambles: William and Millicent Calvert Millicent was John's sister; Michael and Ellen Mudd, Michael being either the uncle or brother of John's first wife. Both these families at the time were Catholic and on excellent terms with Margaret. They, without doubt, helped John during her absences in prison. But around 1580, following harsher legislation against Catholics and the net around recusants definitely drawing in, the Calverts and the Mudds, to Margaret's anguish and sorrow, conformed to the Church of England. However, as everyone knew and we shall see, there were 'church-papists', men and women who went sufficiently often to a sermon or divine service to escape notice by the authorities; but remained Catholic at heart. Among these, it seems, were the Calverts and the Mudds.

At the expiry of her prison terms Margaret automatically took over the running of the home and the retail shop. John was free again to travel at will and see to the needs of the master-butcher side of his business. John's active membership of the Church of England and his standing as a prominent citizen of York saved him on occasions from the full rigor of the law on recusancy fines. At no time either did he restrict Margaret in the free use of their money. There is ample proof moreover, that she spent it on a fairly large scale to promote, to make possible even, her Catholic apostolate.

Following her first stay in the Castle, Margaret embarked full sail on a plan that needed money to procure a hiding place for a priest. From what we know of what happened at her own arrest, hers was an ingenious arrangement.

She hired a room in a neighbour's house to be her priest's room. That room was secretly connected with an attic in the Clitherow home. But Margaret took the precaution to provide a hidden exit from the priest's room which did not pass through her own house. How she managed to have such work undertaken and successfully completed is not known. Further, it could only have taken place during John's absence. The whole operation would have required the utmost secrecy and most probably the necessity of all activity being carried out under the cover of night.

By 1578 the Mass had been proscribed for twenty years and Catholic priests had been hidden away for almost as long. It could be that a new type of tradesmen (and architects) had already come into existence to cater for the needs of the times travelling makers of 'priest holes', as those places of concealment came to be known. History records the labors and success of at least one such man St Nicholas Owen, a Jesuit Brother, very small in height and affectionately called 'Little John'. For seventeen years, but after Margaret Clitherow's death, Nicholas Owen travelled throughout England constructing 'hiding holes' for priests, especially in the large houses of the Catholic gentry. Six or seven priests at a time have been known to escape arrest hidden away in one of 'Little John's' priest holes. Eventually, the Government caught up with 'Little John'. Imprisoned in the Tower of London and cross-examined under long, excruciating torture, he refused to reveal the names of any priests or Catholic families with whom he had been associated. His only response in the greatest of agonies were the words 'Jesus' or 'Mary'. Nicholas Owen, small in stature, great in loyalty, attained martyr status.He died as a result of his tortures on 12 March 1606. It was St Nicholas Owen's skill in constructing hiding places for priests that helped to keep the faith alive in country England during the height of Catholic persecution in the late sixteenth century.

It seems certain that Margaret Clitherow's priests' room was in use on the feast of the Assumption, 15 August, 1578. She was not among the Catholics arrested that day at Mrs Vavasours' house and charged with assembly for Mass. No priest had been caught on that occasion. Margaret had probably been at a very early Mass in her priests' room that morning. It was summer; butcher shops were opened at six a.m. in the Shambles during that season.

Margaret's appreciation of and veneration for the Mass guaranteed that its celebration in her small hiding place should be attended all the dignity and beauty that the tenor of the times allowed. She kept in a well-disguised cupboard fine vestments, the best of white altar linen, sacred vessels and 'other plate" (cruets and finger-bowl, probably) all in readiness for whenever a priest would arrive. Nevertheless, she realised all the while how these treasured Catholic possessions could be used in evidence against her. Worse still in such evidence would have been 'the Catholic books' contained in that same cupboard.

After Margaret had completed her second prison term in April 1581 she was aware, no doubt, that Father Edmund Campion had said Mass at the Vavasours' on 2 February, the feast of Candlemas, that year, and that harsher penalties had been enacted against Catholics by a Parliament in consternation at the influx of seminary priests and the arrival of the first Jesuits, Fathers Campion, mentioned above, and Persons. To hear Mass, henceforth, incurred a fine of 100 marks plus a year's imprisonment; to be absent from divine service, a fine of £20 a month. Absence from the Church of England lasting a whole year required two securities of £200 each, accompanied by an assurance of future

attendance. Unlicensed schoolmasters were to be jailed for a year and anyone employing such, fined £10 a month. Legislation like that was apt to make the stoutest of hearts quail even without an accompanying enactment: informers were to receive one-third of recusancy fines.

But, in a way, Margaret had heard worse news: on 12 January previously, her stepfather, Henry May, was named first on a list of responsible citizens who had put before the High Commission for Ecclesiastical Affairs, the names of twenty-five new recusants. Already, as decreed by the Privy Council, all inn-keepers were required to keep records on their guests: how long they stayed, where they came from, where they were going and for what purpose.

Thus, inn-keepers became unpaid civil servants. No surprise, then, that on 1 March 1581 Henry May had become an Alderman of the city of York and Justice of the Peace. At the time, the High Commission for Ecclesiastical Affairs overburdened with work, allowed recusancy to be handled by the Courts of Quarter Sessions. Thus, Henry May, became eligible to sit in judgment over his recusant stepdaughter, Margaret, at the time of his appointment serving out a sentence for recusancy at the nearby Castle. From the beginning of her second freedom from prison especially, Margaret Clitherow had to make sure that no one at the Davygate Inn should know what was happening in her house at the Shambles.

13 Heroic Seminary Priests

On 15 August, 1581, there was a great stir in the streets of York. A Marian priest, one from the days of Queen Mary Father Wilkinson, 'an old man',was being hounded along 'with the vestment upon him, and two wax tapers carried before him, being mocked and spitted upon with vagabonds; the rest of his company following next after, with a great troop following them'. Among the 'company following next after' Father Wilkinson was Dorothy Vavasour. The priest had been arrested on that feast of Our Lady's Assumption while saying Mass in her house. Margaret Clitherow was not in the group of Catholics publicly ridiculed behind Father Wilkinson. In all probability she had attended an earlier Mass in the Shambles. The report of Father Wilkinson's degradation and derision, manifestly because of his Catholic priesthood, was particularly shocking for Margaret in faith she saw every priest as another Christ but the news that her own stepfather, Henry May, had taken part in the raid and search of Mrs Vavasours' house increased immensely her sense of outrage and added to her distress. Mrs Vavasour went to prison at the New Counter on Ouse Bridge and remained there till her death.

The second raid on the Vavasour house had been well planned and thorough, much different from the more or less cursory one made three years to the date previously. It clearly indicated a change of mood in the local officials. Margaret must have understood the increased danger in what she herself was doing. But, far from being cowed by Dorothy Vavasours' fate, Margaret took up a new responsibility. She determined her house would become what Dorothy Vavasours' had been, the chief Mass-centre in York. Yet, certain grim reports must have reached even distant York by the summer of 1582: eleven priests had been hanged, drawn and quartered during the previous year, ten in London and one in Chelmsford. Even against the tide of that grisly news Katharine Longley informs us that a constant 'stream of seminary priests' kept passing through Margaret's house in York. And the city of York itself was already set to enact the public, horrific scenes that had become somewhat commonplace in London and elsewhere. Between 22 August, 1582, and 29 May, 1583, no fewer than five seminary priests were put to death on the Knavesmire, a place for public executions about half a mile outside the city walls of York.

During that reign of terror for seminary priests, the first two to give their lives for the old religion the jurisdiction of the Pope in England and the holy Sacrifice of the Mass being two of its essential beliefs were Fathers William Lacey and Richard Kirkman.

Father Lacey had only fourteen months of dangerous but fruitful ministry among the scattered Catholics of Yorkshire. He was not unknown in York itself. Twenty years earlier he had held public office in that city; but laws against recusancy kept him, his wife and children constantly on the move around the country to escape fines. After his wife's death William Lacey went to Rheims to study for the priesthood and was later ordained in Rome. In May 1581 he returned to England. Though well disguised spies, informers and priest hunters abounded he was captured in the most unlikely of places, York Castle itself. He had gone there in the early hours of the morning with Fathers William Hart and Thomas Bell to sing High Mass in thanksgiving for the latter's deliverance from prison.

About three weeks following Father Lacey's arrest, Father Richard Kirkman and he had exercised his priestly apostolate for three years was run to ground in Wakefield by pursuivants and brought to York to face trial at the Quarter Assizes. Both priests, standing side by side, were condemned to death on the same day. That morning the judges themselves had great difficulty getting into the courthouse; it was tightly jammed with courageous Catholics. On 22 August, 1582, the two priests were dragged on the one hurdle over Ouse Bridge (did the Catholic prisoners in the Kidcote watch them passing by) along Micklegate out to the Knavesmire. There a huge crowd, many in it secretly Catholic, heard them speak briefly and watched their courageous end.

A week after these deaths on the Knavesmire, people going about their daily affairs in York had an immense surprise. A certain James Thompson, well known among them but in chains, was being taken to the Castle. His supply of money run out, he could no longer pay gaoler's fees in another prison. In the eyes of the law he was guilty of a felony and treason. During a brief absence abroad in Rheims he became a priest and returned to York. On the day of Father Lacey's trial, James Thompson, was ferreted out lodged in William Branton's house, the home of the already jailed recusant. He could expect and got no mercy from the Council for the North. On the Knavesmire along with criminals, some of whom he converted while in prison, he met death with calm, spiritual joy. Spectators were amazed when he traced the sign of the cross on his breast as he swung to death on the gallows. It was 28 November, 1582.

Despite or perhaps because of what had so recently been played out at the Knavesmire in early Advent, Father William Hart had an exhausting time hearing confessions and saying Mass to helping Catholics prepare suitably for the feast of Christmas. Over five nights he had only two hours' sleep. He celebrated Christmas Mass in Mr Hutton's house although its owner, like William Branton, was in gaol. That Christmas night he was in a deep sleep in his own place of hiding when he was roughly awakened for arrest, betrayed by an apostate Catholic. Next morning, St Stephen's Day, Father Hart went before the Lord President of the Council for the North and was sent to the Castle for trial at the next Assizes. His mission to his homeland was brief just eighteen months but in that short space of time he had become the Apostle of Yorkshire. Well educated he had graduated from Lincoln College, Oxford before studies on the Continent to be a priest Father Hart was possessed of a personality 'so winning as to make him agreeable to all'. Because of his courteous behavior, deep compassion for Catholics in prison, some of whom he visited every day, and contagious charity, his name was a household word among those of the old faith in Northern England. For Margaret Clitherow, his reverence and devotion while saying Mass were unforgettable. It seems, as well, it was Father Hart, in particular, who helped guide her along her rocky road to great holiness in spiritual peace, compassion for others, and joy in the service of God.

At the Lent Assizes after condemnation to death for treason Father Hart spoke out boldly before the court:

I did not leave England with any intention of practising treason against my sovereign or my beloved country, but merely that, like a good citizen, I might apply myself to study and to the practice of virtue, so that I might be able to help you and your children to attain eternal happiness.... I took holy orders (to which I perceived myself called by a divine vocation) to the end that, renouncing the world, I might be more at liberty to serve my Maker.. . Everywhere I have been, I have tried, as far as I could, to instruct the ignorant.... I have also fed them with heavenly food, in order that being confirmed in good, they might strive to keep their consciences pure, and by their pious and religious life stop the mouths of those who calumniate us.

The court's decision received no popular support. Resentment rather. Many people followed Father Hart back to the Castle in demonstration of their support. But within was, perhaps, his greatest supporter Margaret Clitherow herself imprisoned a third time for recusancy. At the Knavesmire on 15 March, 1583, Father Hart was as fearless and composed as he had been before his judges.

Margaret was still in the Castle when Father Richard Thirkeld left it for the Knavesmire on 29 May, 1583. His three-year Yorkshire mission had ended in capture while he was on a visit to a prison on Ouse Bridge about a week or so after Father Hart's execution. Two keys were found in Father Thirkeld's possession. One opened a secret cupboard in William Hutton's house whose location was in Margaret's parish of Christ Church. 'Forbidden Catholic books' in English were found Father Thirkeld had been once a member of Queen's College, Oxford. They were taken down to the Pavement in the Shambles not far from Margaret's home where Sir Thomas Percy had been beheaded, and publicly burned. The other key opened the door in the house of a poor widow. Here the guardians of the law found and confiscated the rest of Father Thirkeld's belongings. Father Thirkeld's prayer of eight years was finally granted: the grace of martyrdom.

It appears that Margaret Clitherow's last recusancy prison term ended in the northern autumn of 1584. From both a natural and religious viewpoint she must have taken up life again in the Shambles with feelings of great personal loss. She had been very close to Fathers Kirkham, Hart and Thirkeld, in particular, throughout their secret pastoral care in York. Freedom from the Castle now brought with it another kind of aloneness, great isolation from kindred minds and hearts. Yet Margaret had immense consolation in remembrance of the recent past. By their deaths the seminary priests had given example of that 'greater love' that Jesus spoke of; now memory of their counsels, exhortations and ministrations had an inspirational relevance far beyond any words they could ever have uttered in life. Martyrdom had set God's seal on their ministry and teaching. So, sometimes in the dead of night, with a few trusted women Margaret was under house arrest and spies were everywhere she travelled the martyred priests' suffering-road over the Ouse Bridge, down Micklegate and through the Bar, where St Thomas Percy's head had formerly been displayed, on to Knavesmire to Calvary, yes, and Mount Olivet, too. In Margaret's mind York's Knavesmire was the greatest Catholic shrine in England. Meditation and prayer there brought her very close to the suffering and glorified Christ. But with the sound instruction of the school of the 'Imitation of Christ', Margaret left consolations to God and as Thomas a Kempis advised, tried to drink the chalice of the Lord lovingly. For this there were opportunities enough in her everyday married life.

John Clitherow, though in no way parsimonious about her use of money, was indeed a materialistically-minded man whose life it seems was bent on the accumulation of wealth and property. There came a time when Margaret yearned to get away from York with its legions of informers for a life in the country on one of their estates. She wanted to be free, too, of the busyness of the retail butcher's shop in the Shambles which devoured so much of her time. But John clung to both sides of his business being a master butcher alone was not sufficient for his moneymaking ambitions.

Margaret could do nothing either to change his attitude towards Catholicism. Plainly, he was not at all interested in it, but to his credit did nothing to stop Margaret in her religious allegiance. John tended to be rather free as well in his talk after drinking more than was good for him on social occasions. Margaret had the pain of hearing him malign Catholics; it was probably at a banquet. They fasted, prayed and that all; but were as bad as some other people in their moral lives. Friendly Protestants present saw Margaret's distress; any attack on Catholics pained her. They sought to console her; and John was quick to exempt his wife from any of his diatribes. A great rift had come between Margaret and John; hers was a life in God, his a life immersed in this world. Margaret prayed that God would send her a good spiritual director. In early summer 1584 her prayer was answered. In God's kind providence she met Father Mush.

14 Sound Spiritual Direction

Father John Mush, a native of Yorkshire, came from a working class background. The Jesuits gave him his early education 'out of charity' but because of an 'impracticable temper' Father Persons judged him unsuitable for membership in the Society. So John Mush began his priestly studies in Douai; but after a very brief period there, was transferred to the newly-founded English College in Rome. He did very well in Rome and became masterly in his use of Latin; yet, for all that, he remained very much a plain, blunt Englishman in speech, not 'a gentleman' in the manner of the day, though deep in learning and of excellent priestly formation. In September 1583, Father John Mush with three other English priests knelt before Pope Gregory XIII, received his blessing and set out for their dangerous mission in England. Father Mush was assigned the task of coordinating the pastoral endeavors of his fellow secular priests in northern England, up till then done on a more or less individual apostolate basis. He must have done it well; for later on Father Henry Garnet gave this estimate of him: 'Difficult it is to find anyone in England who has toiled with greater zeal and charity for the salvation of souls'. Such was the calibre of the priest, who in God's all-wise designs, was to help Margaret Clitherow in her imitation of Christ in the brief, final stages of her ascent to Calvary.

Towards the end of 1584 she did a most extraordinary thing especially for a married woman in sixteenth century England. Without the knowledge, let alone consent, of her husband she sent their eldest son, Henry, over to France for a Catholic education. In the context of the times, this seemed for many, perhaps even among Catholics, great imprudence if not sheer folly. But, as someone has correctly asserted, the common way of thinking and acting is not the highest. There is always room for informed dissent and a different way.

Since conversion, Margaret viewed life in this world in the light of eternity, rejecting everything seen only in the garish glow of earthly advantages. At twelve years of age Henry Clitherow was fast approaching the time when he would be required to be a member of the Church of England. Moreover, he had a father whose main concerns were for getting on in this world, adding wealth to wealth in a way that alarmed Margaret as worship at the shrine of Mammon. Margaret certainly had good grounds for fear that her son's Catholic faith was in danger and with the loss of it, his eternal salvation. At the time, Catholics and Protestants both believed that only their way to God saved people from damnation. It is understandable, then, that Margaret should have felt in conscience that Henry, whose religious welfare was her duty, should be out of York and in a Catholic country where his faith could be nurtured and strengthened. There is no doubt, either, that in sending Henry abroad Margaret had in mind the future preservation of the old faith in England. She cherished

the hope and prayed that he would return one day a priest for the English mission. Given the state of the times, we can only marvel at her living faith and maternal self-sacrifice.

Her fortitude, too, was great; she well knew that Henry's absence could not long be concealed from neighbors and relations, but especially from her influential, Protestant stepfather. All things considered, she faced an uncertain, difficult future.

Early in May 1585 new, stringent legislation against Catholics came into force. The year previously the English Government had become alarmed at news of a plot, organised with the help of English Catholics abroad, to have Mary, Queen of Scots, placed on the throne and the Pope's jurisdiction restored in England. A young lawyer, Francis Throckmorton had come under Catholic influence at Oxford where he met and sheltered the Jesuits, Edmund Campion and Robert Persons. He was later implicated in a plan for the invasion of England by French troops for the purpose of liberating the Scottish Queen. When arrested in his house on a wharf in London he was busy at preparing a letter in cipher to Mary, Queen of Scots. In prison, faced with a second ordeal by torture, he gave in and revealed certain names. As a consequence, the Spanish ambassador was expelled from England and Francis Throckmorton himself was executed at

Tyburn on 21 May, 1584. He was thirty years old.

The new laws resulting from the Throckmorton affair, required all Jesuits and seminary priests to leave England within a specified period of forty days. After that, any priest ordained abroad and found in England was automatically guilty of high treason. To shelter a priest became a felony reduced from treason but carrying the death penalty nonetheless. All students overseas were to return within six months. Any person found guilty of sending children abroad for education was to be fined 100; to send money in support of students overseas was an act of treason. Since in English law at the time a husband was held responsible for his wife's conduct in the matter of the last three statutes, John Clitherow's consternation and anxiety can well be appreciated.

However, a family bereavement gave brief pause to John and Margaret's apprehensions at the promulgation of the above severe penal laws. Jane Middleton-May took ill and died. On 12 June, 1585, she was buried in St Martin's Church, Coney Street a place full of childhood memories for Margaret. We have no record of Margaret's reaction to her mother's death. But, since they had trodden vastly different paths over the past ten years or so, there could scarcely have been strong bonds uniting them. On the other hand, Jane's death rang changes in Henry May's course of life: the inn and property at Davygate became Margaret's. The remainder of Jane's estate went to the Middleton family as willed by their late father, Thomas. In that state of affairs, the already strained relationship between Henry May and his stepdaughter certainly worsened. Henry by then, of course, had property of his own; but at a later stage we find him in debt to his stepson, George Middleton. He had probably over-reached himself in business ventures; also the expense connected with public offices which he enjoyed was extremely high.

But Margaret soon had other than family concerns, concerns which touched her much more deeply. The Council for the North was not slow in putting into effect the latest enactments of Parliament against Catholics. Soon swoops on recusants were carried out and York's prisons filled. One of the first arrested was a young Catholic gentleman. He had been employed as a teacher in the home of a Mr Marmaduke Bowes, a 'church-papist'. Under torture, the young man conformed to the Church of England; he named Mr Bowes as a 'harborer' of Father Hugh Taylor, and such even after the passage of laws against sheltering priests. Both Mr Bowes and Father Taylor were immediately arrested, tried before the Council a most disliked court by advocates of common law and condemned to death Father Taylor as a traitor; Mr Bowes for 'harboring'. Mr Bowes after full reconciliation with the Catholic Church, performed perhaps by Father Taylor himself before his own death, was hanged as a felon on 27 November, 1585. His was the first death in England for 'harboring'; and one that caused great resentment against the Council in many quarters of York.

However, by 1585 the Corporation of York itself its Lord Mayor and two sheriffs for that year, were notably anti-Catholic and had become more closely associated with members of the Council for the North and less tolerant of or likely to turn a blind eye on recusancy or breaches of the new penal laws. Yet, in the Shambles Margaret continued on her perilous ways convinced it was God's will. Undoubtedly she had been a little more cautious than Marmaduke Bowes. Her concealed Catholic schoolmaster, Brian Stapleton, had proved himself reliable through long years in prison before his escape and shelter in her home. Further, though her house was open to inspection at any time by health officials from the butchers' guild, or by delegates of the Dean and Chapter of York Minister for its owners, Margaret had a sense of safety from the expert concealment of the entrance into the secret room next door. Later we will see this confidence was well founded. In a way the butcher's shop itself, too, was a source of protection; people came and went all day; it was a hard place to watch. Then, there is no doubt, she had trustworthy employees, friends and neighbors. But, nevertheless, by the end of 1585 Margaret could have had no delusions about the greatly increased risk there was in what she was doing. Spies, calumniators (she was accused of immorality) and pursuivants were everywhere; money was to be had; yet, as Margaret put it, the service of God came first. And Fathers Mush and Ingleby perhaps other priests as well during this time of crisis were hidden in order to carry it out, that is, to say Mass and administer the Sacraments.

In troubled times even heroic people united for a common, worthy cause can and do have differences of opinion on modes of action and, because of the nature of the human person itself, clashes of personality. York's long-suffering Catholics were no exception to this general human experience. Among them were men and women less in union with God than others, though sharing the same sore affliction. Their human frailty erupted in impatience, complaints, arguments, criticism and even suspicion of the motives of fellow Catholics.

Margaret Clitherow was always deeply pained when she encountered such behavior. 'Methinks', she said, 'if they considered thoroughly these things, they should be so mortified that no trouble nor affliction could grieve them, but rather be glad of every cross for Christ's sake'. But the reality was that they were not imitators of Christ to the degree that she was. Father Mush does not hesitate to let us know that Margaret suffered greatly at the hands of some Catholics who in their lives owed a great deal to her. She was attacked 'by such as were bound to her by many and singular benefits, themselves of no good desert for the same'. Then there were 'ungracious surmises and false judgments' secretly conceived against her. Pain caused by one's close and indebted associates is keen pain, as we all know.

One of Margaret's sharpest disappointments followed soon after the Government's latest, harsh decrees against Catholics were made known. A well known and respected Catholic, who had regularly served Mass in her concealed room in the house in the Shambles, sought her out one day for the purpose of imparting some good advice. He came quickly to the point: what was happening in her house was both treason and felony according to the new statutes. It was, therefore, imprudent of her to arrange for the celebration of Mass in secret except on rare occasions. To continue what she was doing was wrong; it exposed both her own children and other people to the rigors of the law.

Then he played his trump card: her husband's permission was necessary for the way in which his house was being used. The interview left Margaret disconsolate she could have no empathy with timorous Catholics and troubled in conscience. In her distress she consulted Father Mush. He was qualified to handle such moral problems of English Catholics by his long, sound theological formation overseas. Their dialogue went like this:

'May I not', said she, 'receive priests and serve God as I have done, notwithstanding these new laws, without my husband's consent?' 'What think you', quoth he, 'in this matter?' 'Truly', quoth she, 'hitherto I have been desirous to serve God, and both to know and do my duty in receiving his servants, and have put my whole confidence in you, that I might safely walk by your direction without sin: and I know not how the rigor of these new statutes may alter my duty in this thing: but if you will tell me that I offend God in any point, I will not do it for all the world.' 'Then', quoth he, 'it is your husband's most safety not to know these things unless he were resolved to serve God notwithstanding any danger; again, by his consent and licence you should not serve God at all, and in this, your necessary duty to God, you are not any whit inferior to him. Neither cloth the cruelties of wicked laws anything change or frustrate your duty to God: and therefore, an it were lawful

and a good deed before these statutes to receive God's priests, and continually to serve him in Catholic manner, the same is still lawful and well done; yea, and more meritorious in God's sight than ever it was. Besides this', quoth he, 'no man can now refuse to receive them for fear of these laws, but he must be partaker in some part and guilty of the wickedness in the law and lawmakers, as by his own deed giving them their intended scope and effect, which is to banish God's priests from their sheep, and so to abolish the Catholic religion and faith out of the whole realm.'

At which words, she, stricken with great joy, said: 'I thank you, Father. By God's grace, all priests shall be more welcome to me than ever they were, and I will do what I can to set forward God's Catholic service.' 'Hereby you may perceive', comments Fr Mush, 'her singular love to God, from whom to be separated a short time in this life she accounted death. And yet, for the same love and obedience to him and his priests, ready for a season as it were to forego God, lest she should any way offend God.'

15 Arrest in the Shambles

There is no doubting that Henry May was a most successful man, especially since Father Mush has emphasised Henry's destitution when he arrived in York: he and his brother, Roger, were scarcely more than beggars. Yet, on 15 January, 1586, Henry reached to top rung of that city's civic ladder: he became Lord Mayor of York. A month later, attended by the pomp and ceremony connected with mayoral office, Henry May married his second wife, Anne Thomson, in St Martin's Church, Coney Street. It was a grand occasion. But Henry's happiness that day was not without alloy; his stepdaughter, Margaret, did not join him in the ritual at St Martin's.

In less than a month following the Lord Mayor's second marriage, John Clitherow was commanded to appear before the Council for the North. The day was 9 March, 1586. John presented himself at the Manor where the members of the Council met, waited some time, judged he would not be called that day, and so went home. Both John and Margaret understood full well the purpose of the summons: as Henry Clitherow's father, John would be required to answer for his son's absence overseas. The ominous question in their minds was why had the Council waited almost eighteen months before making this move? Were they now sure of success? Next morning John was summoned again. He went once more to the Manor but this time he was told to return after dinner. Margaret at once knew the writing was on the wall for her; the Council meant to get her blood. She prepared for the worst.

The Westminster judges were on circuit; York's Lent Assizes were due to begin the next week. It so happened that on the morning of John's second call to the Manor, Wednesday 10 March, a priest arrived at the Shambles. Margaret told him the news. In all probability she had the grace of attending Mass before facing what was ahead. That afternoon, while John was away at the Manor, York's two sheriffs, Roland Fawcett (strongly anti-Catholic), and William Gibson, supported by constables and wardens, swooped on the Clitherow home in the Shambles. Margaret's composure at that critical time was, at least, remarkable. The raiders found her busy in the routine work of running the household, all well-grounded fears and anxieties completely under control. Father Mush graphically describes the search that followed:

The priest was in his chamber... in the next neighbour's house, and some other persons with him, and being forth with certified of the searchers, they were all safely shifted away. In a low chamber of her house Mr Stapleton was quietly teaching his scholars, not knowing what was done in the house below, when 'a ruffian bearing a sword and buckler on his arm, opened the chamber door, and suspecting the schoolmaster to be a priest, he shut again the door, and called his fellows. The schoolmaster, thinking him to be a friend, opened the door to call him in; but when he perceived the matter, he shut the door again, and by that way, which was from the martyr's house to the priest's chamber, escaped their paws. The searchers, greedy of a prey, came in great haste to the chamber, and as though he had been a priest indeed, took all children, the servants, and the martyr away with them. At this time they searched chests, coffers, and every corner of her house; but, as I learned, 'they found nothing of any importance.

From the above account of the Government's raid, it seems that the priest (was it Father Ingleby or Father Mush himself?) and his companions were alerted to their danger and made their escape before Brian Stapleton was surprised in the midst of afternoon class in the Clitherow attic. If such is the case, Margaret had trustworthy people protecting the secret room in her next-door neighbour's house. They had seen the sheriffs' party arrive, it seems, and given the warning before the search of the Clitherow home began. It was a thorough search but we notice that nothing immediately incriminating was discovered except perhaps the presence and then the absence of Brian Stapleton; and the searchers failed to uncover the entrance into the priests' room surely proof of the expertise of its designer.

The children arrested were not all Clitherows. Out of charity and of zeal for preserving the Church in England, Margaret gave other children the opportunity of a Catholic education. Among the children taken away by the sheriffs was a lad between ten and twelve years of age. He had been born in Flanders of a Dutch mother and an English father, and had been in York for only about two years prior to the raid. In his life of Margaret Clitherow, Father Mush always refers to this lad as 'the Flemish boy'. We shall have cause later to refer to this boy from Flanders.

Margaret Clitherow, the sheriffs' main prisoner, was conducted straightaway to the Manor and made to appear before the members of Council for the North then in attendance. None of the four present the Vice-President, Lord Evers, Laurence Meers, Ralph Hurlstone and Henry Cheke could have given her any grounds for comfort or hope. The same four, not very long since had had Marmaduke Bowes hanged for harboring Father Hugh Taylor. Much to the annoyance of her judges, Margaret stood before them serene, composed and good-humoured. They insulted her and her religion; they threatened dire consequences and they bullied her. But she remained undisturbed, unafraid and smiled at times. Exasperated by hersmiles and her 'being stout for the Catholic cause', the Councillors became further incensed against Margaret who, they knew for ten years, had flouted their authority in York. Now her dignity and uncompromising attitude in their presence baffled and enraged them. But, over past years Margaret had prepared for that moment Father Mush himself had pointed out her way to God was through martyrdom. Before her judges she had confidence in Our Lord's promise: what she should say would be given to

her. After seven o'clock in the evening of that same day she was committed to close custody in the Castle to await trial at the coming Assizes.

Though the night was fine, Margaret was wet through when she reached the Castle. Sympathetic prisoners provided her with a complete change of dress. There is good reason to suspect that on the way from the Manor in the hands of her captors she had been ducked in the River Poss the usual punishment then for a scold, an irritable, complaining woman! Although John Clitherow was at the Manor all the time Margaret was there, they were kept apart. Shortly after Margaret's departure for the Castle, John, too, was sent to prison there, separated from his wife.

In the meantime, Government officials had begun interrogation of the imprisoned children. Under threats of cruel treatment the Flemish boy gave in. Returned by the guardians of the law to the Clitherow home in the Shambles, he revealed the camouflaged entrance to the priests' room and, within it, the secret cupboard full of rich Mass vestments, precious sacred vessels, and forbidden Catholic books. Besides, the investigators saw with their own eyes signs that the room had been in recent use the presence of wholesome bread and fresh apple tarts. But there was more damning evidence: the Flemish boy confessed that Margaret had harbored various priests, among whom were Mr Francis Ingleby from Rheims, and Mr John Mush from Rome. He also named the people who had attended Mass in the concealed room. Among these names, carefully written down, was that of Mrs Anne Tesh, one of Margaret's closest friends. By the following Saturday, Margaret knew all this and Anne Tesh had joined her in the Castle. Only once during all that difficult time did she and John meet and then within the hearing of the gaoler and other people. Friends tried to arrange another meeting. But the price demanded by the authorities for it was apostasy. Margaret refused. She and John never met again.

16 The Jury Problem

On the day after Margaret's imprisonment, Thursday 11 March, Henry May, as Lord Mayor, and two Aldermen presided over the Court of General Sessions, the jury for which, as usual, was selected by one of the sheriffs. Among the men empanelled that day were Christopher Smitherson, a friend of John Clitherow, and William Tesimond, the once valiant recusant. Under constant pressure from the Government William Tesimond had finally conformed to the Church of England despite his former strong witness to the truth of the Catholic faith. Had his fines, imprisonments and a session in the stocks in York's raw, winter climate been all in vain? Perhaps not. In his last will and testament, it seems, he made provision for prayers for the eternal repose of his soul. One of the two sons he had sent abroad for Catholic education later became a Jesuit. Margaret Clitherow most probably considered William Tesimond still a Catholic at heart.

In York it was more or less routine procedure to pick juries from the same segment of citizens. This resulted in some of the same jurors being on successive juries when the different courts were held. By Saturday, 13 March, Margaret had rumors, more or less officially sent, of the nature of the charge to be brought against her at the next week's Assizes. In all probability she knew by then that William Tesimond and Christopher Smitherson had served on the previous Thursday's jury. There was a fair probability that one or both of them could be empanelled again for the grand jury that would handle her case in the coming week.

Other alarming prospects loomed up, too: her brother, George Middleton, and her husband's relatives, William Calvert and Michael Mudd, could find themselves jurors at her trial. Such possible eventualities would have been of great concern to Margaret and that concern would not have been ungrounded. We, at this remove in time from the sixteenth century, can appreciate Margaret's state of mind if we draw back the veil on the legal justice system as it was sometimes administered in the law courts of her day. There is the testimony of Henry Hallam, one of England's well-established, early nineteenth century constitutional historians, that Governments of those times could and did, interfere in the empanelling of a jury especially in cases dealing with treason and connected offences. A sheriff could be directed by the Government to select certain jurors, or left alone, could be counted on to empanel such men that would bring forward the verdict desired by the crown. A notorious example of this malpractice, though later, is typical and worth citing. In November, 1596, Anne Tesh, Margaret's staunch friend, and five other Catholic prisoners in York were arraigned before the Council for the North. A Protestant minister had trapped them into 'converting' him to Catholicism crime of high treason. Edward Stanhope, a member of the Council for the North, brought the charge against them, empanelled the jury, picking good Protestants or their relations, and sat on the bench with his fellow councillors at their trial. The six were found guilty; all four men were sentenced to death by being hanged, drawn and quartered; the women, Anne Tesh and Brigid Maskew, to be burned. However, friends intervened in influential places and their sentences were commuted into imprisonment. Thus Anne Tesh was cheated of martyrdom, but she remained in prison until after 1603 when in the reign of James I, she was given her freedom. Hers was a shining example in York of fidelity to the faith at any cost.

Besides controlling juries, the Government could test the loyalty, religious commitment or sympathy of certain men by having them serve as jurors. This was especially likely to happen in the case of Catholics on trial for treason or connected crimes. Such was the case in the aftermath of the rebellion which we have already referred to as the Pilgrimage of Grace.

Its leaders were put on trial in York before a jury composed of many of their relatives deliberately selected for the task by the Duke of Norfolk. Had a guilty verdict not been returned some of the jurors themselves would have faced fines and imprisonment for their own lack of loyalty during the rebellion. But Margaret would have had memories of her own experience before a jury, a special jury, at a Court of Quarter Sessions some time before. Charged with recusancy on that occasion, she had pleaded not guilty but was found guilty. Among the jurors who returned this verdict were, for example, Francis Bayne, William Wood, William Gilming and Robert Watter. The first two were closely connected with recusants: Francis Bayne's brother was a recusant and by the time Margaret came to trial, Bayne himself had become a recusant; William Wood, the redoubtable Anne Tesh's brother-in-law, happened to be under suspicion for sheltering papists. Two very vulnerable men. The last two were safe Government men: William Gilming's daughter married Philip Turner whose family was closely associated with the staff of members of the Council for the North; Robert Watter later became an alderman, and in 1603 when Lord Mayor of York, was knighted by James I who was on his way to London to claim the English throne.

17 No Tria1 at All

In the Castle Margaret and Anne Tesh had the happiness of sharing the same cell. In fact their time together was so pleasant that, as Anne later related, Margaret was somewhat fearful lest their being 'merry' (a popular word for joyful in England then) in prison, should be displeasing to God. However, Margaret kept up her round of prayer and mortification during that last weekend with Anne Tesh. On Monday morning 14 March she dressed in readiness for her appearance in court and awaited the gaoler's summons; but, it did not come before noon. So she spent some time at the cell window trying to communicate with the Catholic prisoners thirty-five of them in the special wing of the Castle. Forming a gallows with her hands and fingers, she signalled to them jokingly how much she cared about being hanged in the cause of Christ. From her experience among the Catholic prisoners she well knew how disconsolate and irritable some could become in their trials for the faith. She hoped her own plight would comfort and strengthen them along their road of suffering. It was typical of Margaret; she never lost an opportunity for promoting fidelity to the Catholic religion even in the most perilous of situations.

About one o'clock in the afternoon the gaoler arrived with his summons: she was to go at once to the Common Hall and stand trial before a court of the Quarter Assizes. Unperturbed, she thanked him for the good news he brought and calmly set off for trial. When Margaret entered the Common Hall and took her place at the bar she faced a formidable, awe-inspiring bench. It was composed of Judge Clench and two other circuit judges, all clothed in scarlet robes; five members of the Council for the North, including Ralph Hurlstone who had already interrogated her at the Manor; the Lord Mayor, her stepfather, Henry May, and his aldermen, also clad in scarlet gowns of office; York's two sheriffs; and twelve liveried attendants. It was not the custom at that time for accused persons in criminal trials to have the support of a lawyer in the capacity of our present legal system's counsel for the defence. Prisoners had to see to their own defence. So, Margaret stood very much alone before her distinguished judges. The contrast was great: a young and 'comely' woman, about thirty-three years old, unskilled in temporal laws, as she put it, matched, as it were, against experienced, stolid men, relentless upholders of the law.

The trial began with the reading of the indictment. Margaret was charged with harboring Francis Ingleby, a seminary priest ordained abroad at Rheims. That felonious action contravened a provision of an Act of Parliament passed the year before. The presiding judge, Judge Clench, then asked Margaret how did she plead? Was she guilty or not guilty? All present in the Common Hall must have been amazed at her reply. She knew of no offense, she informed the judge, of which she should plead guilty. A compassionate man and in no way a bully, Judge Clench immediately countered her avowal by maintaining that she had sheltered Jesuits and seminary priests, enemies of the queen. Margaret grasped her opportunity. She denied ever harboring any of the Queen's enemies. After this most unusual exchange of views between the bench and the prisoner, it seems that Judge Clench assumed that Margaret had pleaded not guilty. He accordingly put the routine question: How would she be tried? By God and the Country (jury)? But, he did not receive the routine answer. Once more Margaret did not answer the question. With full composure she repeated that she had committed no offense and so needed no trial. Her audience in the Common Hall could hardly have believed their ears. A butcher's wife was daring to bandy words with a circuit judge and refusing to follow the conventions of a court of law. Both Judge Clench and a Member of the Council for the North were quick to impress on Margaret that she had broken a law of the realm and must stand trial before a judge and jury of the realm. But Margaret remained uncowed. It was they who said she had committed an; offense. She would be tried therefore by God and their consciences. In exasperation, Judge Clench pointed out that such a procedure was not possible. She must face trial in the ordinary way.

The religious bias of the court showed up plainly in what followed this extraordinary dialogue between the prisoner and her judges.

Then they brought forth two chalices, divers pictures, and in mockery put two vestments and other church gear upon two lewd fellows' backs, and in derision the one began to pull and dally with the other, scoffing before the judges on the bench, and holding up singing breads (i.e. unconsecrated hosts), said to the martyr: 'Behold thy gods in whom thou believest'.

Following this scurrilous pageant attacking the Mass and 'Our Lord's real presence in the Blessed Sacrament, Margaret was asked by the two judges whether she liked the vestments. She liked them, she replied, worn by worthy men to honour God, for whose honour they were made.

Still, however, the court remained deadlocked. No plea had been entered upon. The case could not proceed. The bench, to break the stalemate consulted together for a while. Then Margaret was asked again would she stand trial in the ordinary way. Her answer was no. Judge Clench was a humane man; he knew the hideous penalty provided for those who refused to plead in a court of law. He tried to persuade Margaret she had nothing to fear; no jury would convict her on the evidence of a child. But Margaret, it appears, knew better and refused again to plead.

To gain time the bench changed tack. Margaret was asked whether her husband knew she was harboring priests. It was a trap question. But she had become expert at not answering questions. Her evasive reply neither implicated John Clitherow nor incriminated herself. But, by now the patience of her judges was at an end. She had been asked three times to plead, and had refused each time. However, Judge Clench was merciful. He warned Margaret of 'the sharp death' which was the penalty for failure to plead and adjourned the court until next morning. Then Margaret met the full fury of some members of the Council. Even from the bench they insulted her and the Catholic priesthood; Ralph Hurlstone went so far as to accuse her of sheltering priests for immoral purposes; they claimed her joyfulness throughout the court proceedings was madness; her smiles the work of an evil spirit. But Margaret was able to maintain her poise and serenity despite vilification and abuse from powerful adversaries.

It must have been the talk of York that night when the Lord Mayor's stepdaughter 'was brought from the Hall with a great troop of men and halberds, with smiling and most cheerful countenance dealing money on both sides the streets, to John Trewe's house on the bridge, where she was shut up in a close parlour'. Mr Trewe's house was the New Counter Prison on the north side of bridge over the River Ouse. It had been built by the Corporation to house prisoners who had means enough to set themselves up and pay their own expenses. That night Margaret shared the parlour with Mr and Mrs Yoward, committed Protestants, on their way to prison for debt. Perhaps the authorities thought Mrs Yoward, a kindly woman, could exert some influence over Margaret.

Margaret's only visitor overnight was a well-meaning Puritan preacher, Giles Wigginton. He disturbed her in her prayers and was given short shrift.

At eight o'clock the following morning Margaret was again before her judges in York's Common Hall. Judge Clench was well disposed towards her but, of course, had to proceed according to law. He made three more attempts to persuade her to plead. But to no avail. She was accused of being an obstinate woman and worse to her than anything else, of having no regard for her husband and children. Finally, with the utmost reluctance, Judge Clench had to pronounce the dreadful penalty. Exceeding his powers, he made it conditional. The door was still open for a trial if Margaret changed her mind. She and everyone in the Hall must have been horrified at the cruel barbarity of what they heard.

If you will not put yourself to the country this must be your judgment. You must return from whence you came, and there, in the lowest part of the prison, be stripped naked, laid down, your back upon the ground, and as much weight laid upon you as you are able to bear, and so to continue three days without meat or drink, except a little barley bread and puddle water, and the third day to be pressed to death, your hands and feet tied to posts, and a sharp stone under your back.

The horrific nature of her death sentence did not shake Margaret's resolve; she was strong enough after hearing it to resist two more pleas from the judge to escape it by agreeing to plead. And so the court ended. Then the sheriff bound her arms and escorted her under guard back to prison. Again her cheerfulness through the whole morning brought different reactions. It was the consolation of the Holy Spirit, her friends said; in the eyes of her adversaries, she was possessed by a merry devil. Some time afterwards in prison Margaret confided to Mrs Vavasour why she did not plead.

If I should have put myself to the country, evidence must needs have come against me which I know none could give but only my children and servants. And it would have been more grievous to me than a thousand deaths if I should have seen any of them brought forth before me to give evidence against me. Secondly, I knew well the country must needs have found me guilty to please the Council, which earnestly seek my blood; and then all they had been accessory to my death, and damnably offended God. I thought it therefore in the way of charity on my part to hinder the country from such a sin; and since it must needs to be done, to cause as few to do it as might be; and that was the judge himself.

There was surely a third reason why Margaret decided not to plead. One which Father Mush did not dare mention in his 'True Report', circulated about two months after her martyrdom. We recall that her house in the Shambles had relations of her husband on each side of it, the Calverts and the Mudds. Was the priests' room in one of their houses? If it were, Margaret did not wish to implicate them nor have them constrained to give evidence against her. The welfare and spiritual good of others always claimed first place in her heart even to laying down her life for them in imitation of Christ.

8 Faithful to the End

Margaret spent almost ten days in prison before her |martyrdom. A rumor that she was with child presumably circulated by friends had reached the ears of the authorities. English law forbade the execution of a pregnant woman. Accordingly, Judge Clench ordered a week's stay of execution for investigations to be made; after which time everything relating to Margaret's case was to be the responsibility of the Council for the North. Thus, her friendly judge, who was on circuit, had to leave her to the mercy of the Council.

During the time of her reprieve Margaret received numerous, unwanted visitors. Even members of the Council came to discuss her situation with her and dangled hopes of leniency, pardon even, if only she would go to Church or hear just one sermon. They went away baffled at her firm, uncompromising attitude despite the looming prospect of a hideous death. All attempts to make her betray Fathers Ingleby and Mush proved fruitless; her loyalty to these priests remained unshakeable. She sat patiently, too, through long sessions with Protestant divines; they preached at her and forced their theology on her ears. Nonetheless, to all their hectoring questions she returned one, constant answer: she believed whatever the Catholic Church believed and taught.

The kindly Puritan preacher, Giles Wigginton, came twice again to see her, sent by the Council to persuade her to hear at least one sermon. Despite Margaret's abrupt dismissal of him on the first night of her imprisonment, he had stood up in court the next day to take issue with proceedings when he mistakenly thought she was not being tried according to law. Moreover, Wigginton could sympathise with Margaret; he had suffered imprisonment himself for his Calvinistic preaching in the past. In his simplicity and genuine desire to help Margaret, Wigginton confided to her that he had had a vision of Christ who had assured him of salvation. Margaret listened to him good-naturedly, teased him with her wit and agreed to hear a sermon at any time if it was preached by a Catholic priest. The zealous Puritan knew when he was beaten and returned no more. Perhaps Margaret's most trying visitors were her own relations. They urged her to drop her headstrong ways out of consideration for her husband and children. Any questioning of her love for John and their children was a cause of deep pain to Margaret. Then, one day while she was at her prayers, she looked up and found Henry May himself standing beside her. Being Lord Mayor of York, he had his own access to the prison. Henry effusively expressed his sorrow at her plight and, with all the confidence of an influential man, promised he could have her pardoned if she renounced her Catholic faith. But all Henry's persuasive efforts were lost on Margaret. His thoughts were no longer her thoughts, his ways not her ways. So Henry changed tack. Would she at least confide her daughter, Anne, to his care. But that was not possible. Margaret did not wish her child to be infected with heresy. This was one of Henry May's ventures that failed completely. He left the prison angered; back at the inn, he let it be known that his stepdaughter had been an immoral woman with priests and was now intent on suicide. These slanders, front page news in York, were duly reported to Margaret. She made little of them, satisfied that she was doing what God wanted of her. Nevertheless, even at her scene of death the charge of infidelity to her husband was again hurled at her by Fawcett, the officiating sheriff.

A week after her last appearance in court, Margaret heard that John had been released from the Castle and ordered by the Council to stay away from York for five days. Margaret knew then that her time was short. Her earlier request to meet him had been refused; she realised now she must die without seeing him again. So, it was no surprise for her when, on the following Tuesday, the two sheriffs arrived to tell her that the penalty exacted by the law would be carried out on the coming Friday. Already Margaret had prepared for this hour. On hearing of John's discharge from prison, she had a friend buy her a large piece of fine white linen. With it she intended to make a white, alb-like garment to be her bridal dress on the day of martyrdom. Despite this, however, the sheriffs' final, dire message left Margaret humanly shattered, anxious and fearful. Her spirit was indeed willing, but her flesh, nevertheless, at the awesome moment, became completely frail and weak. Yet, Mrs Vavasour, her companion at that awful time, reported later that Margaret's Gethsemane experience of overwhelming fear and dread lasted only a brief while. She was soon able to kneel and pray at peace. How wonderful is God in all His saints! And so, Margaret spent her last three days on earth in frequent prayer, sewing her wedding garment and fasting from all food and drink. The vigil of her martyrdom was devoid of all human comfort. She longed to have Catholic women to watch and pray with her now that she had been put to the test. But her wish could not be granted. The friendly Mrs Yoward, though, knelt with her till midnight. Margaret continued her prayers three hours more. Then she dressed herself in her white garment and lay for a quarter of an hour on the floor a rehearsal of her martyrdom. Shortly after six, she put on her best gown already put aside for this occasion and with her hair carefully done up in inkles (tapes) in lieu of the ribbons of her first marriage day, she calmly awaited the arrival of the sheriffs. Yet, despite her lively faith and trust in God, Margaret's human nature still cried out for a friendly presence at her coming time of trial. She begged Mrs Yoward to accompany her to death. But that kindly woman was not equal to such a request. Instead, she promised Margaret she would arrange that her death should be swift. But Margaret could not agree to any such plan. So, very much alone and without any 'good Catholics who might put her in remembrance of God' she prepared for her ascent to Calvary.

About eight of the clock the sheriffs came to her, and she being ready expecting them, ... carrying on her arm the new habit of linen with inkle strings... went cheerfully to her marriage, as she called it; dealing her alms in the street, which was so full of people that she could scarce pass by them. She went barefoot and barelegged, her gown loose about her. Fawcett, the sheriff, made haste and said, 'Come away, Mrs Clitherow.' The martyr answered merrily, 'Good Master Sheriff, let me deal my poor alms before I now go, for my time is but short'. They marveled all to see her joyful countenance. There were present at her martyrdom the two sheriffs of York. The martyr coming to the place, kneeled her down, and prayed to herself. The tormentors bade her pray with them, and they would pray with her. I will not pray with you, and you shall not pray with me; neither will I say Amen to your prayers, nor shall you to mine. Then they willed her to pray for the Queen's Majesty. The martyr began in this order. First, in the hearing of them all, she prayed for the Catholic Church, then for the Pope's Holiness, Cardinals, and other Fathers that have charge of souls, and then for all Christian princes. At which words the tormentors interrupted her, and willed her not to put her Majesty among that company; yet the martyr proceeded in this order, 'and especially for Elizabeth, Queen of England, that God turn her to the Catholic faith, and that after this mortal life she may receive the blessed joys of heaven. For I wish as much good', quoth she, 'to her Majesty's soul as to mine own.' Then said Fawcett, 'Mrs Clitherow you must remember and confess that you die for treason.' The martyr answered, 'No, no, Master Sheriff, I die for the love of my Lord Jesus;' which last words she spake with a loud voice. The martyr with the other women requested him on their knees that she might die in her smock, and that for the honour of womanhood they would not see her naked; but that would not be granted. Then she requested that women might undress her, and that they would turn their faces from her for that time. The women took off her clothes, and put upon her the habit of linen. Then very quickly she laid her down upon the ground, her face covered with a handkerchief, and secret parts with the habit, all the rest of her body being naked. The door was laid upon her.... Her hands, she joined towards her face. Then the sheriff said, 'Nay, you must have your hands bound'.

The martyr put forth her hands over the door still joined. The two sergeants parted them, and with the inkle strings, which she had prepared for that purpose, bound them to two posts, so that her body and her arms made a perfect cross. They willed her again to ask the Queen's Majesty's forgiveness, and to pray for her. The martyr said she had prayed for her. They also willed her to ask her husband's forgiveness. The martyr said, 'If ever I have offended him, but for my conscience, I ask him forgiveness.' After this they laid weight upon her, which when she first felt, she said, 'Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! have mercy on me!' She was in dying one quarter of an hour. A sharp stone, as much as a man's fist, was put under her back; upon her was laid to the quantity of seven or eight hundredweight at the least, which, breaking her ribs, caused them to burst forth of the skin....This was at nine of the clock, and she continued in the press until three at afternoon.

19 The Harvest

It was in the morning of Friday 25 March 1586, that Margaret Clitherow said her final yes to God amid unspeakable suffering somewhere on the premises of the old toll booth where fees were collected for passages over Ouse Bridge. It was a completely selfless yes, uttered to save others from temporal and spiritual harm in what would have been for her, a charade of justice. In the Church's calendar, that day was the feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and a holy day of obligation in England. Around York, most probably in early morning darkness at secret meeting places, hunted Catholics had stood, lighted candles in their hands, to hear Our Lady's yes to the Angel made new in the Gospel of the Mass; the yes that brought her a sword of sorrow yet salvation to the world.

The feast of the Annunciation, known as Lady Day when England was Catholic falls at the dawn of northern spring. In York, by then, clumps of golden daffodils, hardy white and yellow jonquils, even small red and blue crocuses braving the retreating snow, had dotted the drab banks of the Ouse with new life and color. But, fresh spring flowers were not strewn at Margaret Clitherow's burial. By order of the authorities her mangled body was taken from the Tollbooth at midnight and buried in one of York's filthiest places. They believed, no doubt, that would be the end of the 'only woman in the north parts', who, if she had been allowed to live, would have inspired many 'more of her order without any fear of law'. Therefore, she had to have 'the law according to judgment passed'. But how wrong their human judgment was. From that noisome grave a wondrous flower sprang, strong and beautiful, much like the English daffodil, unlike though in spiritual freshness and beauty never to wilt or fade.

Father Mush did not flee York at Margaret's martyrdom. Nor was he content that a squalid corner of the city should be her final resting place. He 'and others being desirous to have the sacred body reserved with some due honour, labored all they could to find it and when they had sought divers places at last it was found the same Friday, six weeks after she had been buried. They took it up by night and carried it on horseback a far journey from York and within four or five days prepared spices and with reverence buried it again where with God's grace it may be kept a glorious relic for better times to come'. When Father Mush and his friends exhumed Margaret's body, it was still uncorrupted; but, now that the 'better times' have come, unhappily we do not know where that 'glorious relic' was once secretly reburied.

But Father Mush could not let a life so radiantly Catholic, so redolent of love for God and neighbour, lie unheralded under Yorkshire soil no matter how hallowed. He had been Margaret's spiritual director for the two years before her death, and had experienced something of the fragrant beauty of her life lived in God, and which he knew from the perils of the times would be crowned by martyrdom. So, while memories of her living faith, her frequent prayer, and watchfulness over self were vividly green within him he set about writing his 'True Report' with the help of her trusted friends who had somehow shared in her life of grace and zeal for 'the service of God', that is, that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass should always be offered in England. So, thanks to Father Mush, every Lady Day, especially in Yorkshire, brought remembrance of Margaret Clitherow whose life and death, like the candles alight at Mass, reflected the light of Christ in England's darkened Catholic world; and illumined for many the

'narrow gate' that opens on eternal life.

It is easier, though, to gauge the abiding influence of Margaret's dedicated Catholic life and heroic death by looking into the subsequent careers of those who in life were nearest and dearest to her. We do not know how many children she had but the two we know of, Henry and Anne, kept steadfastly to the teaching and example of their mother. Margaret's fervent prayer for Henry that he would become a priest and return to England was not granted. He studied at Rheims and in the English College in Rome but before ordination entered the Capuchin Order. He later transferred to the Dominicans. The last record of Henry Clitherow is found in the Annals of the Dominican Priory at Viterbo, Italy. The two Latin words after his name Mente Motus could mean either that he changed his mind (about being a Dominican) or that his mind became disordered.

Anne Clitherow inherited much of the high spirits and indomitable will-power of her mother. Even as a child of twelve when in gaol after the arrest of her mother, no one could force or coax her to attend any Protestant service. Three years after her mother's martyrdom her father had married his third wife by then Anne ran away from home. July 1593 found her in a Lancaster gaol for failure to observe the laws of the Church of England. Somehow, she managed later to reach the haven of Catholic Belgium where the Augustinian Canonesses of St John Lateran accepted her as a postulant at St Ursula's Convent, Louvain, in 1596. The first steps in religious life for a mettlesome, young woman like Anne Clitherow were not easy, but with the grace of God and surely the prayers of her mother, she was admitted to vows as an Augustinian Canoness in 1598. Anne 'also by her own industry got the Latin tongue so well as to understand it perfectly... She assisted much in the erection of St Monica's, Louvain, which was opened for English nuns in 1611, although she was unable to go there herself because she wanted friends to allow her means' (no doubt, a dowry). Anne Clitherow died in August 1622, leaving behind a most treasured possession, her own copy of the Abstract of Father Mush's 'True Report' wherein she had often pondered the spiritual journey of her mother. It is skill preserved in the convent of the Augustinian Canonesses in Newton Abbot, Devon, England.

Margaret Clitherow must have clasped her stepsons William and Thomas to her heart when she took control of their father's household at the early age of eighteen or so. Their response to her affection was to follow her into the old faith and not tread the easier path of their Church of England father. In 1599 they were both summoned before the HighCommission for Ecclesiastical Affairs to answer charges of recusancy. William managed to remain at large 'an obstinate recusant', but Thomas was sent to York Castle where in boyhood he must often have visited his loving, valiant stepmother. In March 1603 he died, skill a member of 'that blessed society of the Castle'. His death, it seems, inspired William on to higher things, for in May of that same year he began studies for the priesthood at the English College in Douai. The bitter-sweetness of William's meeting with his half-sister, Anne, at St Ursula's in Louvain is best left to the imagination. And perhaps they did not know that back in York that same year, 1603, their father was among the prominent citizens presented to King James I on his triumphal cavalcade to London and leadership of the Church of England. However, none of John's four elder children was present to witness their father's finest hour. William Clitherow was ordained in March 1608 the anniversary month of his stepmother's martyrdom and returned to England the next August. The exercise of his priesthood had him in prison several times but he died free at Bronsby in 1636 while chaplain to a well-known 'old Catholic' family, the Chomeleys. Thus, Margaret's fervent prayer for Henry was answered in William. How God fulfils Himself in divers ways!

We have already seen how narrowly Brian Stapleton, Margaret's tested and true schoolmaster at the Shambles, escaped arrest when the sheriffs made their swoop in March 1586. A few months later he was in Rheims preparing for ordination. And this, despite the opinion of the Council for the North, that if Margaret 'had not the law she would undo a great many'. If saints smile in heaven there must have been a beaming smile on Margaret's face when in October 1590, Brian Stapleton returned to England to perform 'the service of God' at well concealed Mass centres all around the North.

Father Francis Ingleby, on the charge of harboring whom Margaret was finally brought to court, was captured two months after her death. Ever watchful spies, noting how respectfully he was treated, though poorly dressed money gave respectability in those days had him arrested on suspicion of being a priest. Arraigned before the Council for the North, he was found guilty of being a seminary priest and executed on 3 June, 1586. He was then thirty six years old. Only two years of his priesthood had been spent in England but much of that, it seems, under Margaret Clitherow's protective care in the Shambles. Father Ingleby died, where Margaret had wished to die, on York's Knavesmire hallowed by the blood of martyrs, the seed of the Church.

20 Epilogue

Margaret Clitherow was declared 'Blessed' by Pope Pius XI on 15 December,

1929. She was canonized along with thirty-nine other martyrs from England

and Wales by Pope Paul VI on 25 October 1970, which date is now her feast

day.

'Margaret Clitherow' by Gerard Manley Hopkins S.J.

God's counsel columnar-severe

But chaptered in the chief of bliss

Had always doomed her down to this

Pressed to death. He plants the year;

The weighty weeks without hands grow,

Heaved drum on drum; but hands also

Must deal with Margaret Clitherow.

The very victim would prepare.

Like water soon to be sucked in

Wily crisp itself or settle and spin

So she: one sees that here and there

She mends the way she means to go.

The last thing Margaret's fingers sew

Is a shroud for Margaret Clitherow.

The Christ-ed beauty of her mind

Her mould of features mated well.

She was admired. The spirit of hell

Being to her virtue clinching-blind

No wonder therefore was not slow

To the bargain of its hate to throw

The body of Margaret Clitherow.

Great Thecla, the plumed passionflower,

Next Mary mother of maid and nun

And every saint of bloody hour

And breath immortal thronged that show;

Heaven turned its starlight eyes below

To the murder of Margaret Clitherow.

She was a woman, upright, outright;

Her will was bent at God.

For that Word went she should be crushed out flat

Fawning fawning crocodiles

Days and days came round about

With tears to put her candle out;

They wound their winch of wicked smiles

To take her; while their tongues would go

God lighten your dark heart but no,

Christ lived in Margaret Clitherow.

She held her hands to, like in prayer;

They had them out and laid them wide

(Just like Jesus crucified);

They brought their hundredweights to bear.

these (they did not know)

God's daughter Margaret Clitherow.

When she felt the kill-weights crush

She told His name times-over three;

I suffer this she said for Thee.

After that in perfect hush

For a quarter of an hour or so

She was with the choke of woe.

It is over, Margaret Clitherow.

She caught the crying of those Three,

The Immortals of the eternal ring,

The Utterer, Uttered, Uttering,

And witness in her place would she,

She not considered whether or no

She pleased the Queen and Council. So

To the death with Margaret Clitherow !

Within her womb the child was quick.

Small matter of that then! Let him smother

And wreck in ruins of his mother.

(An unfinished Poem)

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