 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(August 2018) |
Blessed Thomas Woodhouse | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | c. 1535 |
| Died | 19 June 1573 (aged 37 - 38) Tyburn, London, England |
| Venerated in | Roman Catholicism |
| Beatified | 29 December 1886 by Pope Leo XIII |
| Feast | 19 June |
Thomas Woodhouse was an English Catholic priest and martyr at Tyburn on 19 June 1573, being disembowelled alive.
Ordained during the latter part of Queen Mary Tudor's reign, he was a Lincolnshire rector for under a year, and in 1560 acted as a private tutor in Wales. [1] However, he resigned that post as well over religious differences.
On 14 May 1561, he was committed to the Fleet, London, having been arrested while saying Mass. For the rest of his life he remained in custody, uncompromising in his opposition to heresy, saying Mass in secret daily, and reciting his Office regularly. [1] [2] In early May 1571, having heard that John Story had been condemned to death for having supported the Rising of the North two years before, Woodhouse offered to take Story's place on the scaffold. [3] After secret negotiations with the Jesuit Provincial of Paris, he was welcomed by letter into the Society of Jesus, (although the Decree of the Congregation of Rites, 4 December 1886, describes him as a secular priest).
Treated with considerable leniency till 19 November 1572, he sent the prison washerwoman to Lord Burghley's house with his famous letter. In it he begs him to seek reconciliation with the pope and earnestly to "persuade the Lady Elizabeth, who for her own great disobedience is most justly deposed, to submit herself unto her spiritual prince and father". Some days later in a personal interview he used equally definite language. Confined then by himself he wrote "divers papers, persuading men to the true faith and obedience", which he signed, tied to stones, and flung into the street. [1]
He was repeatedly examined both publicly and privately. The Queen's private council was inclined to dismiss him as mad. Once, when he had denied the queen's title, someone said, "If you saw her Majesty, you would not say so, for her Majesty is great". "But the Majesty of God is greater", he answered.
Tried in mid-April 1573 at the Guildhall, Woodhouse not only refused to recognize the authority of the judges, but also challenged the jurisdiction of the secular court to judge a priest. [3] Found guilty of treason, he was executed at Tyburn on 19 June 1573 by being hanged, drawn, and quartered. [4] He defiantly argued that the Queen needed to beg pardon from the Pope, leading some in the crowd to cry out "hang him, hang him, this man is worse than Story". [5]
Thomas Woodhouse was beatified by Pope Leo XIII in December 1886; the Jesuits consider him the protomartyr of the Company on English soil. Blessed Thomas Woodhouse is commemorated on 19 June. [3] [2]
Thomas Abel was an English priest who was martyred during the reign of Henry VIII. The place and date of his birth are unknown.
Edmund Campion was an English Catholic Jesuit priest and martyr. While conducting an underground ministry in officially Anglican England, Campion was arrested by priest hunters. Convicted of high treason, he was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn. Campion was beatified by Pope Leo XIII in 1886 and canonised in 1970 by Pope Paul VI as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. His feast day is celebrated every 1st of December.
The Forty Martyrs of England and Wales are a group of Catholic, lay and religious, men and women, executed between 1535 and 1679 for treason and related offences under various laws enacted by Parliament during the English Reformation. The individuals listed range from Carthusian monks who in 1535 declined to accept Henry VIII's Act of Supremacy, to seminary priests who were caught up in the alleged Popish Plot against Charles II in 1679. Many were sentenced to death at show trials, or with no trial at all.
Cuthbert Mayne was an English Roman Catholic priest executed under the laws of Elizabeth I. He was the first of the seminary priests, trained on the Continent, to be martyred. Mayne was beatified in 1886 and canonised as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales in 1970.
John Houghton was a Carthusian hermit and Catholic priest and the first English Catholic martyr to die as a result of the Act of Supremacy by King Henry VIII of England. He was also the first member of his order to die as a martyr. He is among the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.
John Story was an English Roman Catholic martyr and Member of Parliament. Story escaped to Flanders in 1563, but seven years later he was lured aboard a boat in Antwerp and abducted to England, where he was imprisoned in the Tower of London, and subsequently executed at Tyburn on a charge of treason.
Alexander Briant was an English Jesuit and martyr, executed at Tyburn.
John Nelson was an English Jesuit martyr who was executed during the reign of Elizabeth I.
Thomas Sherwood was a Catholic layman and martyr. He was arrested on suspicion of treason, having visited a house where it seems that Mass was secretly celebrated.
Peter Wright was an English Jesuit Catholic priest and martyr.
William Exmew was an English Catholic priest and Carthusian hermit. He was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn and is honoured as a martyr by the Catholic Church. Exmew and his brother Carthusian martyrs were beatified by Pope Leo XIII on 9 December 1886.
Humphrey Middlemore, was an English Catholic priest and Carthusian hermit, who was executed for treason during the Tudor period. He is considered a martyr by the Catholic Church, and, along with other members of his religious order to meet that fate, was beatified by Pope Leo XIII on 9 December 1886.
The Carthusian Martyrs of London were the monks of the London Charterhouse, the monastery of the Carthusian Order in central London, who were put to death by the English state in a period lasting from the 4 May 1535 until the 20 September 1537. The method of execution was hanging, disembowelling while still alive and then quartering. Others were imprisoned and left to starve to death. The group also includes two monks who were brought to that house from the Charterhouses of Beauvale and Axholme and similarly dealt with. The total was 18 men, all of whom have been formally recognized by the Catholic Church as martyrs.
John Shert was an English Catholic priest and martyr, who was executed during the reign of Elizabeth I.
Irish Catholic Martyrs were 22 Irish men and women who have been beatified or canonized for dying for their Catholic faith between 1537 and 1681 in Ireland. The canonisation of Oliver Plunkett in 1975 brought an awareness of the others who died for the Catholic faith in the 16th and 17th centuries. On 22 September 1992 Pope John Paul II proclaimed a representative group from Ireland as martyrs and beatified them.
Henry Heath (1599–1643) was an English Franciscan and Roman Catholic martyr.
Thomas Whitbread was an English Jesuit missionary and martyr, wrongly convicted of conspiracy to murder Charles II of England and hanged during the Popish Plot. He was beatified in 1929 by Pope Pius XI and his feast day is celebrated on 20 June.
Ralph Corbie was an Irish Jesuit. He is a Catholic martyr, beatified in 1929.
Robert Drury (1567–1607) was an English Roman Catholic priest, executed for treason. He is a Catholic martyr, beatified in 1987.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Blessed Thomas Woodhouse". Catholic Encyclopedia . New York: Robert Appleton Company.| General | |
|---|---|
| National libraries | |
