The story of the martyrdom of Margaret Clitherow (1556-1586), known as “the Pearl of York”, is unthinkable. She was pressed to death by her own door for refusing to enter a plea to the charge of harboring Catholic priests. The Jesuits, etc. Act 1584 made harboring and maintaining priests a capital offence.
According to Wikipedia, “She sent her older son, Henry, to the English College, relocated in Reims, to train for the priesthood. Her husband was summoned by the authorities to explain why his oldest son had gone abroad, and in March 1586 the Clitherow house was searched. A frightened boy revealed the location of the priest hole.”
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“She refused to plead, thereby preventing a trial that would entail her three children being made to testify, and being subjected to torture. She was sentenced to death. Although pregnant with her fourth child, she was executed on Lady Day, 1586, which also happened to be Good Friday that year.”
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“The two sergeants who should have carried out the execution hired four desperate beggars to do it instead. She was stripped and had a handkerchief tied across her face, then laid across a sharp rock the size of a man’s fist, [and] the door from her own house was put on top of her and loaded with an immense weight of rocks and stones so that the sharp rock would break her back. Her death occurred within fifteen minutes, but her body was left for six hours before the weight was removed.”
If you would like to know more about her and the history of the period, visit
www.maristmessenger.co.nz/2012/07/01/saint-margaret-clitherow/
According to Wikipedia, “She sent her older son, Henry, to the English College, relocated in Reims, to train for the priesthood. Her husband was summoned by the authorities to explain why his oldest son had gone abroad, and in March 1586 the Clitherow house was searched. A frightened boy revealed the location of the priest hole.”
…
“She refused to plead, thereby preventing a trial that would entail her three children being made to testify, and being subjected to torture. She was sentenced to death. Although pregnant with her fourth child, she was executed on Lady Day, 1586, which also happened to be Good Friday that year.”
…
“The two sergeants who should have carried out the execution hired four desperate beggars to do it instead. She was stripped and had a handkerchief tied across her face, then laid across a sharp rock the size of a man’s fist, [and] the door from her own house was put on top of her and loaded with an immense weight of rocks and stones so that the sharp rock would break her back. Her death occurred within fifteen minutes, but her body was left for six hours before the weight was removed.”
If you would like to know more about her and the history of the period, visit
www.maristmessenger.co.nz/2012/07/01/saint-margaret-clitherow/
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